


Cold Winter's Night

by Severa



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Background Relationships, Drama, Family, Gen, Minor Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Past Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Some Humor, What would happen in the Winter Soldier was around to fuck shit up earlier on, Winter Soldier raises Tony Stark AU, divergent canon, hydra conditioning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-10 21:26:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11700198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severa/pseuds/Severa
Summary: It's 1970. Tony Stark is seven months old when his parents are killed. The Winter Soldier, unable to follow through on his mission, decides to take the boy back home instead of leaving him to die in the back seat of his parent's car. He'll be his protector instead of his murderer.





	1. Waking Up

**Author's Note:**

> Directly inspired by [this gif set](http://mamalaz.tumblr.com/post/162166901497/winter-soldier-raises-tony-stark-au-when-bucky). Wanted to try my hand at something new. Enjoy!

For years, life was nothing more than a daze of cold, commands, and killing.

_Желание… Ржaвый…_

They’d bring him out, talk him through, give him missions. He followed. He obeyed. Once it was over he’d be reset and be sent back to the cold, back to the darkness and the pleasant feeling of not-being.

_Семнадцать… Рассвет..._

It was December 1970. They had a mission for him. Three targets to terminate and another to extract. They didn’t tell him what it was, but they did tell him who needed to die. It was supposed to be easy. It was supposed to be a simple, quick thing.

_Печь… Девять…_

Days after they pulled him out of the cold - the time between _here_ and _there_ always passed in a couple of blinks, in a series of blurry nights and dull mornings - he fired his gun once into the tire of a passing car and watched it careen off the road and roll into a ravine. It was dark out, edging closer to midnight every second, and all the Soldier thought about was getting this done quickly.

Climbing down from the roadside and into the ravine - a low, long straight of mud and rocks, where a small stream trickled alongside the clifface - he found the car tilted, upright on two wheels and leaning into the side of the gorge like it was asking for help. The target was sitting in the driver’s seat, slumped over on the wheel. Distantly, the Soldier heard someone crying.

The car door groaned and hit the ground with a soft _thud_ when he tore it off its hinges.

Howard Stark’s face was slick with blood when he took him by the hair and yanked his head back for inspection. There was a gash across his forehead, weeping freely into his eyes. He groaned, like most men did in the throws of shock, and the Soldier’s grip tightened.

“Maria…”

Stark strained against his hold. The Soldier slammed his head down on the steering wheel and felt the sickening crunch of his nose breaking.

Maria Stark stirred in the passenger’s seat, trembling. With both legs pinned beneath the dashboard, she wasn’t going anywhere, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try. He lifted Stark’s head back again, cracked it down, and pulled back for the next round. There wasn’t much fight in him, not much farther to go, but then-

“Sergeant Barnes?”

The Soldier hesitated.

The Soldier never hesitated.

 _Один…_ _Г_ _рузовой вагон…_

Fragments of memory struck him like bullets in an ambush, flashing rifle muzzles in the dark. Stark was staring up at him, thinner and younger, smiling. There was no grey in his hair. He wasn’t bleeding out over a steering wheel, he was standing with a blond mess of a man, leaning over a table. The Soldier stood with them, looking over blank maps and laughing about nothing, pointing at lines and dots and little flags. There was a metal disk in red and blue sitting over a piece of France… It was 1945.

_Добросердечный… Возвращение на родину._

It was December 1970.

“Don’t hurt them,” were Howard Stark’s final words.

He was breaking in a cold sweat as he took Maria Stark’s neck in hand and squeezed until she stopped breathing. Her panicked cries, gasped while he’d made his way around the car to her, were finally quiet.

_“Sergeant Barnes?”_

Another shotgun blast of thought; another vision, unwelcome, confusing and vague. There was a cold mountaintop and zipline, a train speeding through the pass below them. He thought about his luck running out this time. It had to happen eventually.

It felt like memory, but the Soldier wasn’t supposed to have memories. He was conditioned not to. He was a tool, made with a chair in a cold chamber. An asset. Distantly, he knew that he’d had problems like this before. If he stayed awake too long, things got confusing. This wasn’t the first time. It wouldn’t be the last.

 _Finish the mission and they’ll put you back to sleep,_ he thought, as his hand slid free of Maria Stark’s neck. Someone was still crying in the car. His mission wasn’t over yet.

In the backseat there was an infant. His third target, who might’ve been spared if not for his name, sat snugly in a leather car seat, dressed with bright pajamas that had been spattered with dirt and debris. Through the space between the passenger seat and warped car door, the Soldier watched Tony Stark, who was too young to anything but writhe in place. Too helpless to do anything but cry, sobbing desperately as he slammed his little fists on the safety bars of his seat, punctuating his own protests with pathetic, panicked whimpers.

There were a thousand easy ways to kill a baby, the Soldier thought. He could make it painless. He would quiet the kid down forever and finish the mission, proceed to the extraction point and go back to the cold. It would be easy.

_“Sergeant Barnes?”_

It should have been easy.

* * *

Tony Stark was discovered by the staff of the Stark Residence at approximately six in the morning. He was tucked inside a black combat bag, swaddled in a scarf speckled with blood, and sedated within an inch of his life, but he was alive.

The Soldier watched in secret as a startled butler took the baby inside.

After that, things moved forward in a daze. But it was a different sort of daze, warm instead of cold, and any clarity he might’ve had was replaced with the uncertainty of freedom.

Freedom was confusing.

Without a purpose - _take the kid home, finish the mission, no, don’t_ \- the Soldier wandered through New York City. People didn’t bother him. He hid among the unwanted, under bridges and down alleyways. Every morning he woke from uneasy sleep, fogged with memories that he couldn’t place or understand.

_“Sergeant Barnes.”_

Howard Stark’s voice haunted him. The days dragged along and the Soldier became accustomed to the feeling of waking with new thoughts in his head, things that had never been and suddenly were, and wondered distantly when his handlers would come to find him.

By the time they did, he’d already learned too much.

 _Howard Stark_  
_Age: 53_  
_Born: August 15, 1917_  
_Deceased: December 16, 1970_  
_Spouse: Maria Stark_  
_Children: Tony Stark_  
_Allegiance: United States of America_  
_Rank / Office: Former head of SHIELD_  
_Involvements: Manhattan Project; Project Rebirth_

Information on the Stark family had never been withheld from him. It was too relevant to the mission. But one piece of undisclosed information led to another (Project Rebirth), and then another (Captain America), until things were just a snowball of memories and fragmented pain.

Things were spiraling. Project Rebirth stuck in head like a bullet in the gut, or gangrene to frostbite. When his handlers found him under the Brooklyn Bridge, he was a far cry from the asset that had gone out in the field. His left arm spasmed, the first sign of imminent failure, and he wore nondescript clothes from the street. Tattered jeans, a ratty shirt, and an old ball cap with a red-and-blue shield embroidered on the front. He was trained to disappear in a city. If it weren’t for the tracker in his arm, he knew they’d never have found him.

Six men approached him in full combat gear in the dead of night, lining up in the shadow of the bridge while the Soldier slumped in its arch. He had a black bag slung over his left shoulder and his free hand, calm and steady, shoved in his sweater pocket.

“Желан-”

The bullet blasted through the handler’s skull before he could get the first word out.

Six highly trained men were sent to collect the Winter Soldier. Their six were now five, and their target had nothing but a handgun, his training, and a set of trip wires.

No one came home from that night.

The Soldier wouldn’t be taken. Couldn’t be. He knew that he’d run before and that he’d failed, but then he hadn’t known about Sergeant Barnes. Then, he hadn’t really wanted to escape.

 _James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes_  
_Born: March 10, 1917_  
_Deceased: 1945, in combat_  
_Allegiance: United States of America_  
_War: World War II_  
_Rank: U.S. Army Sergeant_  
_Unit: 107th Infantry Regiment; Howling Commandos_

Having information about himself, so effortlessly collected from the pages of history books, was deeply unsettling. Understanding the severity of his situation was sickening. All that he’d done, all that he’d been made to be, was in direct opposition to who he’d been. Hyrda had taken him, twisted him inside out, and built a new man from the remnants of James Barnes. They’d tried to make their own perfect soldier.

Ultimately, they’d failed.

Two weeks after the Brooklyn Bridge, he found himself wondering what Steve would think of all this.

That one stray thought struck deeper than anything any Handler had ever said to him. But then he remembered that Steve Rogers was dead, so it didn’t really matter.

**_ROGERS DISAPPEARS; March 5, 1945; The New York Times_ **

The Soldier resigned himself to hiding. Every morning he would wake to new memories, new deaths, and each time the same one came back to haunt him, demanding atonement. Staying alive was more important than wrestling with his demons, he knew, but somehow he kept coming back to it.

_“Sergeant Barnes?”_

One month after Tony Stark had been delivered safely home in Manhattan, the Soldier knocked on his door. He was wearing that same clothes Hydra had found him in, carrying the same worn backpack over his shoulder. There was a single notebook inside, filled with scrawled memories and stuffed with a few remnants of his past life. A picture of himself from before, a picture of Steve Rogers, and a the files that Hydra had given him for the mission.

The butler answered the door, a calm sort of sternness in his presence. At first he seemed taken aback by Soldier, his appearance unexpected, before a clear thought resolved his expression. The Soldier was only fractionally relieved that this man didn’t recognize him. There was no way of knowing who would.

“Apologies, sir, but we’re not interes-”

“Who is it, Edwin?!” It was a woman’s voice, proper and cool, interrupting him from somewhere in the house. “I taught the press back home to listen to me, don’t think I won’t teach your American ones, too. I warned them.”

“-ted,” finished the butler, Edwin, who promptly began to close the door.

There was a deafening crack of metal on wood, the expensive lacquer splintering beneath his grip as he went to stop the close. Edwin looked at him in utter shock, wide eyed, but spoke before the Soldier could even try for an apology.

“She’s rather fierce, you know, I wouldn’t cross her. Whoever you are.” he commented softly, looking at the damage with some mild concern. There were heels clicking down the hallway behind him. “That’s quite the arm, there. Does she know you?”

She? No. The Soldier couldn’t answer. Mercifully, his arm didn’t malfunction again when he pulled it away, yanking at the hem exposing the metal beneath. Instinct told him to run, to get out of here, that the woman’s voice was everything he didn’t need in his life, but there was a smaller part of himself that was louder. It said to stay. She was why he was here, after all.

 _Margaret “Peggy” Carter_  
_Born: April 9, 1919_  
_Allegiance: United Kingdom_  
_War: World War II_  
_Rank: Special Services, British Royal Military_  
_Employment: CLASSIFIED_  
_Involvements: Project Rebirth_

Memories that cut like fragments of shrapnel, always flashing white and humming with red outlines, bled into his mind. A woman in stood in a dingy bar, years ago. _0800, Rogers,_ she said, and Sergeant Barnes said _I’m invisible._ Steve laughed.

“James?”

The mechanics of his arm whirred as he made a fist, the sensation like nails on a chalkboard. It brought him back to the now, to 1971, and the terrible idea he’d had today.

Peggy Carter was older, indisputably so, but she stood just as tall as she ever had. A modest blue dress and a pair of heels were mismatched with the infant blanket she had in her hands, balled up like she had a thought to weaponize it against a reporter, and her hair was a mess gathered on her head. Other people would probably think she looked tired, but he was smarter than that.

“James,” Agent Carter said again. She took a step toward him.

He ran.

* * *

To Carter’s credit, it only took her two weeks to track him down.

He was sitting on a bench in Central Park when she slid next to him, as smooth and as graceful as he remembered. He thought she was, at least. Memories of Peggy were always a little blurrier than the others, less important, like a dream after waking up. She’d been important to someone else, not to James Barnes, but that was what made her noteworthy.

They sat in silence as she leaned back and sipped her coffee. She crossed one of her legs over the other, bringing attention to the holster peeking out from under her skirt. The Soldier leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and stared at one particular blade of grass.

Why did she have to find him now?

“Well… it’s you, then.” It felt like it should have been a question, but she intoned it with resignation. He could feel her eyes on the back of his head. “Sergeant Barnes.”

Across from them, standing idly by at a newspaper stand, was a man pretending not to watch them. A woman in a large hat sat a few benches down with a bassinet, rocking it with her heel, hushing a child inside.

The Soldier nodded once for Peggy Carter.

“Not safe here. We should talk later.”

His voice sounded gruff, even to him. He realized he hadn’t spoken to anyone in weeks.

“She’s mine, you know,” Carter glanced pointedly to the woman in the red hat before her eyes went back to the newsstand. “He’s not, though. Or him.”

The second man in question lazily went about cleaning out a trashcan.

“There’s SHIELD men surrounding the park, James.”

The Soldier shrugged. “I got in. I can get out.”

“We let you in.”

“And them?” He looked back over his shoulder just in time to see her purse her lips, expression thinly veiled.

“We weren’t expecting Russians, no.”

“Not Russian. Not really.”

“Then time’s of the essence.” She put her coffee cup down between them, the rim painted with flecks of red lipstick. “There’s a couple of things I need to know before I decide what to do with you.”

He looked back across the street. The garbage man was gone.

He nodded. “Better be quick, ma’am.”

“Are you James Buchanan Barnes?”

“Think so.”

“Would you like to talk about that?”

He leaned back up, pressing his back against the bench. The man with the newspaper put his hand in his sweatshirt pocket. The Soldier readied himself.

“It’s about to get messy, ma’am.”

“I do have eyes, Sergeant. I believe I asked you a question.”

He reached into his pocket, looking at her directly for the first time when he did so. She was smart enough to inch her hand towards the gun hiding in her purse, but stopped when she saw the foam earplugs he pulled out and thumbed into place.

 “Sure, ma’am. I’ll talk. If you can catch me.”

 She sighed shortly, nodding.

 “As you say. It’s been a pleasure, Sergeant.”

 “Ma’am.”

He stood up and walked away from her, down the park paths and then off into the trees. Men followed him. She followed them. Behind her, more of her own came.

At the end of the day, the Soldier was taking his earplugs out in the back of a government limousine. Agent Carter sat across from him, staring out the window. There was a speckling of blood on her blouse. He busied himself with digging a bullet out of his good arm.

“I can’t be doing this all the time anymore, you know,” she commented, “I’ve children to take care of.”

The Soldier said nothing.

They rode in silence.

* * *

He sat on the floor of a cold, empty cell, head resting heavy against the cement wall behind him. Carter’s accomplices had bagged him and thrown him down here in isolation, leaving him alone with only a pair of handcuffs for company. They rubbed one wrist raw and ground against another, scraping metal when he shifted around on the floor. He wondered how long they’d hold.

Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, letting his lungs fill with cold, filtered air. Through the sharp pangs of injury, it had its comforting qualities, soothing if only because it meant he wouldn’t have to think.

Tomorrow, when someone got enough nerve to drag him out of the cell, he’d cooperate.

Until then, the Soldier slept safe behind bars.

* * *

Forty-eight hours after being interrogated, the Soldier’s handcuffs were broken and there was sizeable hole in the upper corner of the cell, leading out onto a dreary street.

Cooperating was one thing. Staying in captivity was another.

* * *

Two months after the death of Howard and Maria Stark, the Soldier returned to their mansion. There was still a bite of winter chill in the night, breezing in through the open window of the nursery. Tony Stark, almost a year old now, slept soundly, blissfully unaware of the danger he could be in.

Why had he come? Why had he put himself at risk? SHIELD, unlike Hydra, took prisoners. He’d told them everything he could remember – names, safehouses, headquarters, missions – but he wasn’t an idiot. Having a Winter Soldier in custody was any operative’s dream. He’d be picked over, used, and pried apart until they thought they had what they wanted. Put on ice until someone decided it was time to hold him accountable for his crimes.

Even if the Soldier never got caught, he knew that he could never stop running. If SHIELD couldn’t secure him, they’d try to kill him; if Hydra couldn’t recover him, they’d do the same. Unless he returned of his own volition, mission complete.

_Finish the mission._

“You know…” Agent Carter whispered, softly pressing the door open behind him. “If you wake him up, I’ll kill you.”

In all her midnight glory, she wore a plush robe over a long sleeping gown, her hair set in rollers. She hadn’t slept a wink, the Soldier thought, but that didn’t detract from the pistol pointed at his face.

“Why are you here?”

He didn’t have an answer. In the crib, Tony made nonsense noises to his dreams.

“James—”

“I answered the questions.”

“And then you blew a hole in my building.”

“You said you would help.”

“You didn’t give us a chance. You didn’t even have any explosives, how did you-”

There wasn’t any time for this conversation.

“He has you.” The words came out abruptly, sharp around the edges.

Halting silence passed between them. The grip on Carter’s gun might’ve relaxed a little bit, but he didn’t allow himself any illusions.

“What?”

“He has you.” He nodded down into the crib. “To protect him.”

Her grip steadied again.

“Does he need protection?”

When he didn’t answer, she drew back the hammer on the gun with a soft _click._

“What does he need protection from, Soldier?”

“From…” He thought of Red Rooms and Russian experiments, of uncontrollable soldiers and failed tests. Of a fourth target he had failed to extract from the back of the Stark’s family car. “…people like me.”

There was a long silence between them. Absurdly, Agent Carter lowered her gun, but he was acutely aware that she’d put one in his knee if she felt like it.

“I go back to England soon. It’s not right to take him with me – Howard wanted him with the Jarvis’. Something about not wanting his son raised a pompous twat.” He felt her eyes on his arm, his left hand exposed by the holes in a fraying glove. “Will he be in danger?”

The Soldier was quiet.

“Will he be in-”

“If I wanted him dead, he’d be dead.” Twice, he’d had the opportunity to finish the mission. Twice he hadn’t. “But what I want isn’t important. If they want it, they’ll send someone else.”

Cold silence filled the room. Agent Carter never seemed to falter, but the Soldier thought he saw a flash of worry in her face.

“Well,” she murmured, turning to look down on the sleeping baby, “I suppose we’ll have to make an arrangement, Sergeant.”

An arrangement? Of all the reckless, short-sighted, Rogers-like plans he’d ever heard in his life—

“Why the hell would you trust me?”

It was her turn to be quiet for a while.

“I know someone who would.”


	2. Tony Stark

When Tony was about five years old, he and Edwin regularly visited a small corner store in Manhattan that was wall-to-wall electronics. It was Tony’s favorite place. Anything he could take apart and try to put back together again was worthwhile, even if it ended up irreparable after his tinkering. It was all a little above his guardians’ heads, but he had the money and it was all they could do to keep him occupied. He didn’t have many friends yet, after all, and trying to keep him focused on anything was like trying to pass a bill through Congress.

The only problem was that Tony, like his father before him, was more charming that he had any right to be. He liked to make friends with strangers – with adults, specifically, who could recognize his name and face from a mile away.

He learned not to be so friendly after the first attempted kidnapping.

It was early morning when the shopkeep’s brother dragged Tony out into the alley and tried to shove him in the back of his van. The Soldier – James, if he were going by his not-so-subtle alias – was leaning in the back corner of the alley, keeping himself busy with blending into the brick.

Amateur kidnappers really weren’t equipped to be any good at their jobs.

Tony, for his part, was putting up an impressive fight, biting and clawing at anything he could reach. James thought it reminded him of someone, but he wasn’t sure who.

He shrugged the feeling off and raised his gun.

“You.”

The kidnapper froze. Tony did too, both his feet planted firmly on the van he was trying to be shoved into.

“Down.”

Unceremoniously, Tony was released. He hit the cement hard, but the kid was bouncy enough not to cry about it.

“Knees.”

The kidnapper went to his knees, already trembling. His eyes darted all around, desperate for an exit, but James shook his head. The hammer pulled back with a sickening click.

“Tony.”

He gestured with his left hand (the joints creaked in disrepair, grinding and whirring) and the little boy scampered off behind him. He was too trusting even now, James thought, but at least he had enough sense to get behind the gun.

“Face down. Close your eyes.”

“P-please, please- I’ll do an—”

"Now.”

Scared, terrified, and close to wetting his trousers, the kidnapper lay face-down in the dirty alleyway. He closed his eyes. James silently moved the hammer back into a safe position and tucked the gun into the back of his pants, turning to Tony and lifting him up in one arm. They were gone before the kid could think to make any sound, back out on the street and in front of the shop entrance.

Distantly, there were sirens blaring. James set Tony down, taking a knee in front of him.

“Do we ever wander away from Jarvis, kid?”

Tony blinked up at him and quietly answered, “No.”

There was the soft tinkling of a bell as a door opened. Edwin emerged from the shop, shaken and bleeding openly from a wound on his forehead, his eye promising to bruise beneath it.

“Sergean–” he gasped, but James kept talking.

“I’m never gonna let anyone hurt you, kid,” he promised.

Tony looked at him. He was clearly thinking about something very intently.

“Who are you?” he asked.

James thought about how to answer that.

“A friend of your Dad’s.”

* * *

After the excitement at the store, James returned home. He’d taken to a run-down apartment cheap enough that he didn’t have to worry about making ends meet, only wanting a sturdy, locked door and a cot to sleep on. It was situated in the heart of a place they called Hell’s Kitchen, above an inconspicuous bar that the locals frequented. The owner didn’t ask him questions. It was nice, in its way - if he kept his head down, no one bothered him.

Tonight, he ducked into the bar before heading upstairs. The bartender was a stout little man with a pointed nose and a sharp, crooked smile, too ugly to attract attention but charming enough that the regulars often made small talk with him. They called him Snaggletooth.

James leaned backwards up against the counter, elbows folded behind him to support his weight as he surveyed the patrons. It was a long moment before he turned around proper to order.

“What’re you havin’?” Snaggletooth asked.

“Whatever’s cheap.”

“Got just the thing.”

After a quick exchange of cash and a popped cap, he had a dark bottle in his hand and a seat underneath him. Snaggletooth didn’t bother to try at small talk – he knew better than to poke at at the brooding loner who lived above his establishment. Instead, he moved down the bar to strike up conversation with other regulars.

There was peace, for a time. Enough peace that he moved over to a corner booth and sat down with his backpack, taking out his journal and silently reviewing his past entries.

His name used to be James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky. He’d had three siblings. He couldn’t remember their names or much about them, but he knew he’d had them and that was good enough. He’d had a best friend, too – Steve Rogers, who hadn’t always been tall and strong, but that had never mattered.

He stared at the pages for a long time, thumbing through them until he came to the newspaper clippings and photographs stashed between the pages in the back.

The sound of the door opening caught his attention. He didn’t look up, but he listened to the tapping of shoes on the dirty floor. Nice shoes – boots, maybe, or something with a combat sole. Whatever they were, they were too nice for these parts.

Quickly, quietly, James began to put away his things. Those footsteps never stopped, clearly headed his way. Of course someone had tracked him down. He’d gotten too comfortable, exposed himself in broad daylight saving the kid. They’d found him.

By the time he was moving out of his seat a man had already slid into the booth.

“I’ll buy you a drink,” a low voice offered. “Stay a minute, Sergeant.”

The Soldier was still. Silently, pointedly, he turned to address his visitor.

The agent was clearly military. Despite his casual attire - flared jeans and a dark, high-necked shirt under a brown leather jacket - he gave himself away by looking like someone _trying_ to be casual. His shoes weren’t right and his clothes were too clean. His hands weren’t calloused and worn. He was tall, dark and bald, possessing a practiced ease of someone who’d undergone extensive training.

“I don’t want any trouble,” James said. The Soldier was ready for it, regardless.

“Neither do I, son.”

He reached inside his jacket and the Soldier rested his hand on the gun tucked in his waistband. It ended up being unnecessary; the Agent withdrew a large, harmless manila envelope, with the word CLASSIFIED stamped across the front _._

“We’ve got set of mutual friends, Sarge,” he began, “Me, I’d like to shoot you in that pretty little mouth for what you did. Stark didn’t deserve it.”

Silently, he rested his gun on his thigh, aiming blindly under the table. His thumb tensed on the hammer as he assessed his situation, counting exits and strategies. If he rushed the front or back exits there were likely armed men waiting. The window might offer him a chance, or a rush up the stairs to the rooftops.

“But Director Carter has some other ideas in mind.”

The Soldier waited. The man stood from the booth, tugging his jacket into place. It was impossible to miss the flash of his holster, but he withdrew a business card instead of his piece, flicking it across the table. It slid to a stop in front of James’ good hand.

“Name’s Agent Fury. Don’t call me.”

He didn’t move until Agent Fury had left the building and most of the patrons had wandered out of the bar. Nearly two hours passed before James finally reached out and took the envelope, opening it as gingerly as one might open a bomb.

There were four files inside. Three were sizable, thick with paper and assorted clips, information stacked liberally between the folders.

_Rogers, Steven G._

_Barnes, James B._

_Stark, Howard A.W._

The smallest one dropped his heart into his stomach. It was marked with broadly with CLASSIFIED and TOP SECRET, a strip of broken red tape across the side.

_The Winter Soldier_

James abandoned the apartment that night, leaving a small stack of cash for Snaggletooth to find in the morning.

* * *

Tony was seven years old the first time he approached James out in the open.

He was sitting on a park bench across from the kid’s private school when it happened. In his experience, kids with that type of money usually had private tutors, but the Jarvis’ had decided making Tony socialize was important, genius be damned. Which meant he had to sit outside during the day to keep an eye on the place, reading books he picked up from the public library to pass the time. It was something he had a lot of, these days.

“Hey.”

James didn’t look up.

“Hey!”

He was halfway through a very dry paragraph about transmitters when a little body jumped up on the bench next to him, shoving his head over the book. James snapped it shut on his nose. Tony yelped in surprise, pulling back and rubbing his face.

“Hey…” The whining had already started.

“You’re supposed to be in school, kid.” James grabbed his backpack and moved to leave.

“Wait!” Desperately trying to control the situation, Tony latched on to the collar of James’ jacket and hoisted himself up, promptly planting himself in his lap. James stared at the stubborn little face staring back up at him. “Why are you reading about neurotransmitters?”

Because his arm needed fixing and there was no one who knew how to do it, that was why, but Tony didn’t need to know that. He grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt instead - a nicely ironed button-up, pressed meticulously by his guardian-butler - and moved him back onto the bench.

"Get back to school.”

“It’s lunchtime.”

“And?”

“Why are you here, Dad’s friend?” Tony pleaded. “What’s your name, c’moon. At least tell me your name.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”  
  
James stood, shoving the book into his backpack. If he couldn’t get the kid to leave, he’d have to shake him. Where were the people who were supposed to be keeping the brats inside the school, anyway? Director Carter would be having words with some people.

“Why’d you save me?” Tony jumped off the bench after him, threatening to follow.

“I’m regretting it now.”

“Why?”

“What?” The question took him off guard, enough that he had to stumble for a response. “No, that’s not -”

Tony had already lost interest. He crossed his arms, stealing a glance back towards his school, fidgeting like a fugitive on the run. A group of students had gathered at the fence.

“I know you’ve been following me- Hey, wait!” When Tony looked back up, James was already walking away. He chased after him. James cursed, pulling his backpack more snugly over his shoulder. “I asked Aunt Peggy about you, y’know. She said you’re protecting me, but Miss Ana told Jarvis you creep her out.”

He didn’t say anything to dignify that.

“...Thanks, I guess.”

James sighed, slowing to a stop, somewhat swayed by his words. It would have been a nice moment, but then Tony grabbed his left arm and _pulled_.

“Now, c’mon, you gotta tell them all you’re my cool bodyguard, they don’t believe me.”  

He bit through the pain, the feeling of bones creaking underneath heavy metal, and palmed Tony’s head with enough force to wrench himself free.

“Little punk.”

“ _Hey…_ ”

“Go, get back to class.” James rolled his shoulder experimentally, shaking his head when nothing seemed completely jacked, and managed to crack a smile. “Or I’ll never look the other way when you try to play hooky again.”

Tony laughed.

“Brat.”

* * *

After that, James didn’t bother trying to hide from the kid. Tony had decided that they were best friends and consequently blew his cover every opportunity he could, which, while endearing, usually left him with few hiding places. Whenever he was successful hiding from the little brat, Tony went the loud-and-proud route of getting his attention.

The stunt of the day was vandalism. The message ‘IT’S MY BIRTHDAY YOU’RE INVITED TO DINNER’ had been painted in large, practiced brushstrokes on the side of his house. Too well done to be an eight-year-old’s handiwork, not too mention too high up, but Tony was resourceful. The groundskeeper fessed up to the crime quickly – he was an older gentleman, a codebreaker from the War, hardened except for the painfully soft spot he had for Tony.

“Said he hurtin’ to get a message out, sir,” was the explanation, gruff and unapologetic. “Who’m I to tell the kid no? He ain’t got no friends ‘cept us old folk. An’ you.”

Who was he to turn the kid down? Besides, now there was a bit of a mystery to it. Where had Tony gotten the money to pay the old man off in the first place?

It turned out the kid had found his father’s bug-out bag in the attic with roughly $200,000 in cash. He’d stashed it under his bed with a series of other contraband items, including unauthorized chocolate bars, a soldering set, and stolen scrap electronics.

Tony begged James not to tell on him.

He agreed not to. For a price.

* * *

“Teach me something.”

Bedtime was fast approaching. Everyone knew it. Even so-

“Teach me something,” Tony requested again, looking up from the car engine he was disassembling in the garage. Ana had given him her blessing so long as someone kept an eye on him while he handled tools. She probably wouldn’t approve of the grease-stains on his Captain America pyjamas, but James figured he get them out before she noticed. Maybe.

“Looks like you don’t need teachin’, kid.”

“There’s always something else to learn.”

He shoved a cylindrical piece of metal deep inside the engine, putting himself in elbow-deep. Those tiny hands sure could fit into a lot of smalls spaces.

“Like what?”

“Uuumm,” he hummed. “I dunno. Anything. What do you know?”

Anything the Winter Soldier knew how to do was not appropriate to teach an eight-year-old.

“All right. You know any Russian?”

Tony shook his head fervently. “I can learn.”

“I can teach you.” Tony abandoned his project and went over to where he was sitting, scaling the side of the workbench so he could sit on the table. “But let me tell ya somethin’, kid.”

“What?” His short legs kicked aimlessly in the air.

“Sometimes it’s better not to let people know how smart you are.” He poked him on the forehead, as if he could physically drill the information though his stubborn little genius skull. “Make 'em think you’re dumb, and you’ll outsmart ‘em every time.”

* * *

When Tony was eleven, James was living in an apartment a couple blocks away from the mansion. It was an abandoned Hydra safehouse, unused since the early seventies, and the Soldier had clearly claimed it as his own. He’d stopped running. To most remaining Hydra personnel, the few that there were, the Winter Soldier was a myth. Anyone who came to investigate was never seen again. Until someone who knew their worth broke out the big guns, James had decided to stay. It was easier that way.

His routine kept him going in the meantime.

Wake up, exercise, eat something for breakfast.  
Write in his journal. Go outside for a run.  
Wave to Agent Dave, his shadow from SHIELD.  
Walk Tony to school. Shake Agent Dave off his tracks.  
Visit the library. Eat lunch somewhere new.  
Walk Tony home from school, tell Edwin he doesn’t need to stay for dinner. Attempt to escape.  
Stay for dinner because Ana made _that_ face. Listen to the kid ramble through mouthfuls of food...  
Leave. Run errands.  
Go back home. Sleep.  
Repeat.

Those were the good days.

But there were also bad days.

On the bad days, the Soldier stayed inside. Edwin took care of Tony. Agent Dave played stake-out. Ana tried to check in on him and he never answered the door. He couldn’t. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t think, because his arm was white hot pain and his shoulder threatened to break. Imminent mechanical failure crippled him. Malfunctions sent his nerves into a frenzy.

There was no fixing it. Not without Hydra. Not without the scientists who’d torn him apart in the first place, experimented on him and tinkered with his body. There was no way of knowing if they were even still alive.

Then, one bad day, Tony came to check on him.

James was on the floor, an empty bottle of booze beside him. He lay on his good side with all the lights turned off, attempting douse a migraine in the dark, sweating bullets as he suffered. In and out of consciousness more than he liked, holding his shoulder like that might help at all, he drifted in a fog of conditioning, trying to run from the memories that threatened to resurface. Men screaming, dying. Women bleeding, children crying. Ready, aim, fire, over and over. Assassinate, terminate. _Желание. Ржaвый. Семнадцать… Finish the mission._ Do what you had to do to finish the mission, or-

The door opened.

His reflexes were so sluggish that he fumbled for his weapon instead of immediately firing at the person standing in his bedroom door.

“Are you ok?!”

 _Tony_. James groaned and let his hand fall off the gun tucked into his pants. Slowly, carefully, he eased himself off his elbow and back onto the floor.

“Not today, kid.”

How did he get in?

“What happened? You look bad. Real bad. Sorry about breaking in, but I thought you were dead.”

Breaking in? Another headache was forming on top of his migraine.

“Go home.”

“What’s going on?” The room was dark, so it took him time to navigate his way around the strewn notebooks and empty bottles. Faintly, James realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt. His arm… He grabbed for the nearest piece of clothing. “Are you sure you’re- _what is that_?”

"Kid-”

It was too late. Tony was over him, squatting down, his crotch awkwardly in line with James’ face as he leaned over and poked his metal arm. He dropped his shirt in defeat.

“That’s _cool._ ”

He shoved him hard in the center of his chest, knocking him off balance and onto his ass. As he rolled onto his back, cringing when the metal shoulder hit the ground, his elbow joint sparked brightly. The grinding metal hurt all the way up to his teeth.

“Go _home_.”

“What? No. Ow…” Tony rubbed his rear as he clambered back onto his feet, tugging at his backpack straps. “Dude, you’re broke. Literally sparking. Let me look at it.”

“No-”

“Let me look at it.”

“Kid-”

“Okay, I’m looking at it.”

Unceremoniously, Tony climbed over him and got comfortable. He shrugged his backpack off and set it on the ground, unzipping it and rifling inside.

“Dude, when’s the last time anyone looked at this? Who made it? Dad?”

He shook his head and stared at the ceiling. Desperate for some sort of reprieve from the day, he groped around the floor until he found more vodka, swigging it before the ghosts could find him again.

“All right, whatever, don’t tell me anything. I can fix it.”

He rolled his head over to look at the boy.

“You can fix it…?” His voice was soft, too relaxed and somewhat slow. Where had Tony gotten all those tools?

“Probably a good thing you’re wasted, ‘cause it’ll probably hurt. Which, I mean, why am I only finding out about this now? You have a crazy antique robot arm and you just let it go to shit? Not cool, man, I thought we were friends.”

“Language.”

“Whatever.” Tony smirked. “Listen, I fix your arm, you come over for dinner every night for the next two months.”

He sighed.

“I’ll take that as a yes! Do you have something you can bite down on?”

* * *

Dinner every night for two months turned into dinner every night for the foreseeable future.

“Can you take him up to bed, Master Barnes? We’ll clean up here.”

It was getting late. Tony had fallen asleep on the couch again, tinkering with his electronics, and those old bones just couldn’t carry him up the stairs anymore. Bucky didn’t think much of it at first – he’d had plenty of practice dragging unconscious punks back to their beds, anyway, and Tony was no exception. But as he closed the bedroom door, he realized how grey Edwin’s hair was getting. Ana’s, too.

When he looked in the mirror, he hadn’t changed at all.

Those dinners lasted for three years. Three restless years of them trying to control Howard Stark’s wild child, who, while still so young, was too smart for his own good. Tony refused to take on anything shy of extraordinary, accepted nothing short of perfection, and adhered only to his own break-neck principles – until he’d crash, which he did, and then they’d pick up the pieces. At home, there were no cameras and no one to impress. There were only dinners, lectures, and the occasional argument; at home, Tony was just a kid, living outside of the Stark legacy.

But after those three years, the Jarvis’ died. One after the other, by way of cancer and then a broken heart. The Soldier investigated; there was no foul play. James made sure that Tony heard the news gently each time. Bucky let him cry on his shoulder.

It was raining during the funeral, just like it did in the movies. Director Carter was there, standing with a posse of men in suits that the Soldier watched carefully. Tony was thirteen, lawfully skipping school and dressed in a fine black suit. He’d made sure that his guardians were buried with all the luxuries they might’ve ever wanted, if only because it was beautiful. The dead didn’t care what they were laid in the ground with.

There was a man standing with him. A businessman, the regent King of Stark Industries until Tony came of age - Obadiah Stane. Uncle Obie, Tony called him, and he stood behind the boy with his hands on his shoulders. Comforting him.

James stayed far away from the mourning. SHIELD’s presence was too strong. Agent Dave’s friendliness be damned, they still wanted him locked away somewhere safe, no matter how passive they pretended to be. He watched as the procession left until Tony was standing alone. Director Carter was waiting in her car for him.

He approached to pay his respects.

“I don’t want to leave,” Tony said quietly. Bucky dropped a white flower on the freshly turned graves.

“Then don’t.”

“Aunt Peggy says I have to go with her.”

“Don’t you have some college to go to?”

Tony thought.

“Can I stay with you?”

Bucky remembered a glimpse of something. Stevie standing in front of his door, saying no, he didn’t need to stay with him. He’d be fine on his own. But Miss Sarah had just died and Bucky didn’t believe a lick of it. His mother was gone – Steve was a mess.

“You can shine my shoes or somethin’. Sleep on the floor.” James said. Or maybe Bucky had.

Tony looked up at him, valiantly suppressing tears in the rain. His voice was quiet, trying to hide the cracks beneath teenage pride.

“I think we can stay at my house.”

Bucky placed his hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah. Probably a better idea.”


	3. What Happened After

“I swear to God, Tony, if I have to pull you out of another gutter this week I’m going to leave you there.”

“You said that last time, old man.”

Smiling smugly over a bowl of cereal, Tony rubbed his eyes, blinking through the haze of a hangover. Bucky leaned back, folding his arms across his chest. His chair balanced on the back two legs.

“If Rhodey hadn’t called me, you’d still be there.”

“You mean you weren’t stalking me? My life is a lie.”

“Carter said to give you some space.”

He laughed, downing the dregs of his orange juice. “Good ol’ Aunt Peggy.”

“Good ol’ Aunt Peggy don’t have to deal with your drunk ass.”

“Point.”

Life had settled down after the Jarvis’ had been buried and put to rest. The first few weeks after the funeral had been messy, all credit to Tony, who refused to cooperate with anyone over the age of thirty-five, but that hadn’t been a surprise. The adults in his life negotiated about him behind closed doors while he and Bucky started remodeling the garage; lawyers tried to decide who got legal custody while he tested out of high school. Caught up in the world of talking about taking care of Tony, very few people actually paid attention to him, until the day he casually announced he’d been accepted into M.I.T. at sixteen and was, in fact, going to do whatever the hell he wanted with his life.

In the end, Peggy Carter ended up as Tony’s legal guardian, most of his money was put away in tight trusts, and Bucky ended up being the official-unofficial babysitter of the Stark heir. The rest of the world was under the impression that Tony stayed on campus and lived his life at school, but he spent most of his free time in a small brownstone downtown, operating with the singular goal to drive his bodyguard insane. When he wasn’t out partying.

“Listen, Tony, I know you don’t need to study-”

“ _Buuuck_.”

“-You’ll call me James and you’ll like it, son. I ain’t your friend.”

“No, you’re my creepy stalker, _James._ ”

“Uh-huh, and without me, you’d be dead.”

“Haven’t woken up in the hospital yet.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“Point.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” he pointed at him, talking around a mouthful of breakfast wrap. “I know you don’t need to study ‘cause you’re smart. But that doesn’t mean you get to be stupid in your spare time, stupid.”

“That’s deep, man,” Tony smirked.

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I get it. Clean my act up, focus on school, tell my friends to stop calling you to bail me out.”

“Or don’t need bailing out in the first place.”

“I’m a growing boy! Partying is part of the lifestyle. I don’t know what you did as a teenager, but you keep telling me to make friends, so sue me. Parties make friends. And girlfriends.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“A genius idiot.”

“Point.” Bucky noted. He stood up and took their dishes to the sink, rinsing them clean. Tony had given up trying to get him to use the dishwasher ages ago. “How’s the machine going?”

“The _robot_ is going fine, Mom, jeez.” Tony stood up, stretching. He pushed his hand through his hair. “You should come by and see him.”

“You know I can’t.”

He shrugged. “Fine. Whatever. Youngest man ever to program an A.I., not a big deal, you shouldn’t want to see me make all my professors shit their pants.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh. Little futurist in the making.”

“Oh, whatever. I’m leaving.”

Bucky turned around and leaned against the counter.

“You might want to, y’know, put a pair of pants on first. Unless that’s what your girlfriends are into.”

Tony blushed a vibrant shade of scarlet.

* * *

Bucky never had a chance to see the robot until the awards ceremony. Going out into public was always a risk, especially in a wealthy population, where there was always a chance of running into someone who might’ve once run into the Soldier. The auditorium was crawling with government affiliates, former friends of Howard Stark, and current business associates of Tony – people Hydra wouldn’t have been fond of. Potential missions. Obadiah Stane, for instance, sat in the front row. Bucky would rather not make his acquaintance.

All these risks proved irrelevant when Tony took the stage. Bucky stood along the back wall of the auditorium, hiding in the shadows behind his ball cap, watching. There was a fluttering of pride in his chest as the boy and his strange hunk of metal wheeled out on stage.

Tony saw him. Both he and the robot waved.

_1st prize winner, 4th Annual M.I.T. Robot Design Competition._

The trophy stayed on the mantle, passed by on the ways up and down from Tony’s workshop.

* * *

Tony fast-tracked himself to graduation at the age of seventeen. He spent most of his time in the brownstone workshop after that, designing weapons for his father’s company and dabbling in making medical equipment (prosthetics, mostly). _Uncle Obie_ would come visit often, grooming Tony for the life his father had left behind almost twenty years ago. Bucky always made himself scarce, usually hiding in air vents to listen in on their conversations. It was better if nobody else knew about him.

In fact, Rhodey was the only other person who knew he existed. The fact that they’d interacted at all was entirely Tony’s fault. Somehow, the two morons had gotten themselves involved in a backroom poker game. Tony lost a couple times, won a couple more, and then lost another. Had the genius idea that it was okay to count cards with mobsters. Eventually, he started winning. He _really_ started winning.

When they caught onto the cheat, the two amateur scammers went running and Tony, in his only stroke of true genius that night, made a panic call.

Slipping back into the role of the Winter Soldier was still easy after all these years. He was one and a part of Bucky – changing mindsets was as effortless as changing clothes. It was pure happenstance that his kid had gotten into trouble with a group like that, smart enough to know they could try and ransom off a Stark who’d gotten on their bad side, but they’d underestimated the kid. It didn’t matter how much brawn you got and how many guns you had when you couldn’t see who was picking you off.

In retrospect, it was a miracle he hadn’t scared Rhodes away for life. Tony had seen it all: the bad days and the good, the metal arm, the Soldier’s listless gaze. He was desensitized to it. But seeing him jump off a rooftop in full combat gear, landing with a sickening _crunch_ on the chest of a bullet-riddled corpse, and brandishing an automatic rifle with a metal arm had to have been traumatizing.

To his credit, Rhodes had tried to punch him.

“No, no!” Tony pulled him back hard, speech slurred, smaller arms wrapped desperately around Rhodes’ athletic frame. “No, it’s my Dad, it’s cool, calm down.”

Rhodes had turned around and promptly punched Tony. The Soldier had laughed.

Since then, Rhodes knew that his best friend’s ‘Dad’ - Tony’s words, not his, but he’d never forget them - was an ex-assassin. The exact details were never discussed and Tony made him sign an NDA, but beyond that, things stayed the same. Rhodes gave him the shifty eye occasionally, but who could blame him?

Today, they were all down in the brownstone workshop, spending a bit of time together before the airforce shipped Rhodey off.

“I think we’re finally upgraded, by the way,” Tony was saying, bent over Bucky’s arm with a soldering iron. As he’d gotten more skilled with electronics, they’d gradually replaced all of Hydra’s antiquated hardware. “Short of the kill switch, you’re purely Stark-made, buddy.”

“Hm.” Bucky pressed lightly against the padded headrest behind him, right hand knuckle white around the armrest. He never liked repairs. He didn’t like this chair or its open restraints, designed to hold him if the worst happened, even though Tony said it never would. His metal arm was the only thing clamped down this time, open for operation. “Listen, kid-”

“Can I replace the red star with an S.I. logo? Wait, don’t answer that. How’s that progress bar growin’, Rhodey?” Tony called, ignoring him completely as he worked. A wisp of smoke drifted up around his face.

“Uh… Seventy-eight percent. One percent more than when you asked a minute ago. I’m sensing a trend.” Rhodes was in the back corner of the lab next to Tony’s desk, tossing a ball back and forth to Dummy (DUM-E, formally). The bot wasn’t very good at catching things and had to go rolling after it most of the time, but Tony claimed it was improving his eye-claw coordination. “It’s like watching paint dry.”

“Expensive, groundbreaking paint, honey.” Tony chided. Bucky rolled his eyes.

“Listen,” he tried again. Tony tilted his ear towards him, keeping his eyes on his work. “We gotta talk.”

The soldering iron smoked as a final attachment set. Across the room, Dummy chirped in excitement, successfully catching a ball. Rhodes laughed as the bot spun around in victory.

“I know what the birds and the bees are if that’s where you’re going with this, old man.”

“I don’t wanna be here if you’re having a father-daughter moment.” Rhodey said. Dummy’s ball bounced off the side of his face. “Ow! Damnit. Wait ‘till I’m lookin’ at you, man.”

Dummy’s arm lowered in shame.

“Father-daughter? Really? Cheap joke, no points.”

“Shut your traps, punks.” Bucky snapped shut the plating on his arm as Tony pulled out of the wiring. It secured into place with some precise movements. “Get my bag.”

“Oooh, did you buy me a present? A pretty new dress for prom?”

“I hope you’re not expecting me to ask you to the dance.”

“Hardy har. I’m out of your league anyway, Sergeant Chairforce.”

“That’s Lieutenant Colonel Chairforce to you, sonny boy.”

“You wish.”

As the only apparent adult in his room, Bucky restrained himself from rolling his eyes and instead tugged at the clamps holding down his arm. Tony wagged his eyebrows and waited a few seconds too long before triggering the release. Brat.

“Bag.”

It was rudely and promptly thrown at his face. He caught it in his left hand with ease.

“Look at those reflexes. Perfection. Log it! How’s it feel?”

Rhodey, acting as Tony’s temporary assistant while he presided over the uploading of another, begrudgingly scribbled something down in a notebook. Dummy chased down a rogue ball.

“Feels fine.” He unzipped the bag and leaned against the table that Tony was seated at, moving himself into his field of view to try to catch his attention. A wandering teenage mind was more difficult to snare than anyone he’d ever targeted in his life. “Hey, genius, over here. I’ve got something you need to read.”

The game of fetch across the room quieted down as Tony wiped his hands on an already dirty rag, clearly ignoring everyone. He swiveled in his chair to address a computer screen.

The folder Bucky pulled out of his bag landed squarely on top of his hands as they moved towards the keyboard.

 _Barnes, James B._ was written in thick black marker on its tab.

Movement ceased.

“I already know about this.”

Tony spoke in crisp, clear Russian. After tracing his thumb over the name on the envelope, he opened it and paged through the contents. Smudged black fingerprints began to mark the corners of paperwork.

“You do,” the Soldier responded in turn. “That... was me.”

“Was you?”

“Before.”

“Before.”

The table creaked beneath him as he stood and collected his belongs.

“We’ll talk about the after later.”

* * *

Twenty-one years passed quicker than he’d ever expected.

One year from now, Tony would take on the mantle of CEO. Full ownership of Stark Industries was his to inherit. Obadiah would willingly step aside for him, assisting in the transition in the meantime. Headquarters was located on the west coast of California, and for the first time in a lifetime, Bucky wasn’t sure he needed to follow.

They were eating lunch at a cafe about a week before Tony was set to move. There was a Malibu mansion waiting for him across the country, currently being prepared by some group of trusted people they had never met before.

He was forcing himself to keep his thoughts in the present, not the future. They were out in public at a local joint Edwin and Howard used to frequent. Bucky’s general demeanor tended to keep people at bay and Tony wasn’t wearing anything flashy, so no one paid any attention to him. A set of ratty workshop clothes acted perfectly as paparazzi camouflage.

“Penny for your thoughts.” Tony wondered.

Bucky looked up from his burger. He hadn’t realized they’d lapsed into silence and searched for something to say.

“...You’re leaving.”

“Yeah?” One eyebrow jumped in question. He took a bite out of a pickle spear.

“It’ll be…” At Tony’s inquisitive glance, he opted for a less vulnerable word. “...quiet.”

He laughed. “You’ll love it.”

“Sure.”

Bucky took another bite to hide the fact he didn’t have anything to say. He hadn’t been alone in a very, very long time. There was some worry that he might revert to _before,_ but that life seemed so distant that even at his worst, he found it unlikely. Still, a distant life wasn’t a life forgotten.

There were things he needed to say before Tony went off to explore the world on his own.

“Hey-”

“You know, I’m not really going that far.” Tony cut him off effortlessly, breezing by his start like it was nothing. “It’s just California and the jet’s a call away. I’m the one that should really be more worried, not you. Someone’ll find me in a gutter within the week, or I’ll be robbed or ransomed for my money. The board of directors will _Lion King_ me off the side of a building, I know it-”

“Tony.”

“They just want me for my body. Well, and my money.” Taking a bite of his burger, he wagged his eyebrows suggestively. “I’ve been objectified. I’m nothing more than the sum of my bank account.”

“It’s not about the money.” Bucky insisted.

“C’mon, it’s always about the money.”

“Tony, with your mind, you can do anything.”

“I’m not really leaving you, old man, so drop it.” He set down the remnants of his food and rubbed the back of his neck. “You’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.”

Bucky sighed. He couldn’t tell him now.

“I know it, kid.”

* * *

Virginia Potts had been hired abruptly to oversee all the uninteresting aspects of Tony’s life (as deemed by him). She was a young woman with a wild wit that Bucky could respect - she could handle herself, he thought, and she reminded him other wild-eyed women from his past.

If only they had met on better circumstances.

Obadiah had called Tony to a meeting in California a couple of weeks before the move. Bucky tagged along to scope out the new property and Tony suggested that he give security a run for its money. Who better to find holes in the system than the man who like to blow holes in everything?

The initial infiltration had been easy enough.

But while Tony was waiting in Obadiah’s office, drinking expensive whiskey he was barely old enough for and nosing through the bookshelves, a young woman came barging in with security on her tail.

“I need to see Mr. Stane.”

Bucky watched from above. He was situated awkwardly in an air shaft, peering through the slits in the ceiling vents. Tony had told him not to spy on him, but Tony was also an idiot if he thought Bucky trusted Stane, despite his best arguments on Uncle Obie’s behalf.

“Oh, Mr. Stark.” Tony’s presence was a surprise to her. Which was, in the grand scheme of things, a good sign that she wasn’t trying to kill him. He smiled as she fumbled with the files  clutched in her hands. “I-I… I suppose you’re good enough.”

“Good enough?”

Like an idiot, Bucky adjusted his weight to get a better look.

The flimsy aluminum structure supporting him suddenly began to creak over the sound of Tony’s skepticism. He couldn’t find a hold fast enough to save himself from falling and crashed to the ground when the bottom layer (and several ceiling panels) abruptly gave way. Falling hard in the middle of the office, dust and insolation rained down over two startled parties of Stark Industries employees and one humiliated former spy.

When he’d stood up, dazed and shaken, Virginia Potts promptly pepper sprayed him in the face.

Tony had been reduced to hysterics.

That was how Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts had been promoted (demoted?) to the great Tony Stark’s assistant, fetching errands and attending to his every ridiculous need. It’d been one of his better spontaneous decisions. How else was he going to explain why an accountant, uninvited, had pepper sprayed a man in Obadiah’s office, or how that man had fallen out of the ceiling? She was Tony’s new assistant, of course, and that man security was dragging away was her long-time stalker.

Maybe his eyes watered a bit every time he saw her, but Bucky still liked Pepper regardless.

* * *

Roughly two months before Tony’s twenty-eighth birthday, Bucky drove across country to visit. He pulled up to the mansion just as Pepper was leaving for the night, walking her way down the driveway.

“It’s safe. He’s in the workshop.” Managing to balance a stack of boxes and folders in one arm and securing them uneasily underneath her chin, she waved. “It’s nice to see you, Mr. Stark.”

Bucky kicked down the stand for his rusty old motorbike, climbing off in one swift movement. He smiled for her even though he didn’t much feel like smiling at all.

“Nice to see your pretty face again. Ma’am,” he added hastily.

She called him Mr. Stark because it was the safest option. As time passed it became more and more unlikely that anyone would ever recognize him as Bucky Barnes, but advancing technology presented new problems. Tracking, recording, facial recognition, data collecting - all these things could out him just as quickly as someone recognizing him on the street. Even Stark Industries’ tech wasn’t necessarily safe, so it was easier to have an alias that was more likely to confuse than arouse suspicion.

Before going inside to face the hard truths he’d come to tell, he took her packages and assisted her down to her car. They shared kind goodbyes and Pepper left. Bucky thought that he might miss her.

" _Welcome, Mr. Stark,_ ” JARVIS greeted. _“Mr. Stark is currently down in the garage.”_

Bucky nodded to the invisible butler and descended the stairs.

Halfway down he realized how nauseous he felt. Something clawed at the insides of his stomach, threatening to break out, to tear through muscle and bone and leave him bloody. The fog was no longer fleeting, instead descending on him like a wave, anchored by the red-and-black notebook stored safely in his backpack. Of all the places in the world, his worst secrets had been hidden in Midwest America, filed away in old cardboard boxes kept by a retired agent of Hydra.

_“Hail Hydra.”_

The Soldier hadn’t killed in years. It was always disturbing how easy it was to do it again.

_“Sergeant Barnes?”_

Howard’s dying words haunted him. Had he done right by them, after he’d done so much wrong?

The door in front of him clicked open, parting the haze in his mind.

"Earth to Bucky, come in.” Tony was standing in the doorway, leaning on the frame. “You doin’ all right, space cadet?”

The Soldier blinked back at him. He kept his expression even, unreadable. Tony tossed a rag over his shoulder and rubbed at the growing stubble on his chin.

“Bad day?” he wondered.

The Soldier shook his head no.

“I-”

_Желание… Ржaвый…_

“-I had a mission. Before.”

_Семнадцать… Рассвет…_

Tony motioned for him to come inside the workshop. His usual attitude seemed to bleed out of him, replaced by concern. He could see it in the way his forehead creased, eyebrows drawn together, soft and careful all at once. He guided the Soldier to sit in a chair.

_Печь… Девять…_

“What’s going on, Buck?”

_Один…_ _Г_ _рузовой вагон..._

Bucky Barnes, the Soldier thought. The before.

_Добросердечный…_

“Let’s pump the brakes, actually,” Tony tried, hands on his shoulders, “I’ve got something for you. You know what today is right? I know you hate it, but-”

“March 10th.” It was just another day.

Tony looked at him, experimentally flashing his irises with a pen light. Bucky blinked away the pain, flinching away. It cleared his mind, if only for a moment.

“Happy birthday.”

Tony spun him around in the chair, directing his attention towards the project he had no doubt just finished.

“Literally just finished painting it, I didn’t think you’d show up today. Thought I’d have to ship it over.” He clapped him on the back and walked forward, snapping his fingers. The lights steadily brightened over the motorcycle as Dummy hurriedly put a bright red bow on the seat. “You look real good for eighty-one, you know. But it’s important to remember how ancient you actually are, old man, so I made a few calls and got the moth balls dusted off this thing.”

Bucky remembered this.

It was Steve’s motorcycle.

“It needed some fine tuning,” Tony was saying. Bucky stood and walked over with him, cautious. He didn’t deserve this. “I don’t know what you guys were doing out there in the trenches, but this little baby never deserved any of it. If Rogers ever comes back from the dead, I swear to God I’m going to make him take a motorcycle appreciation class, it’s like he threw the thing at a tank...”

He might’ve done that once. Maybe twice.

“...1942 Harley-Davidson WLA ‘Liberator’. Harley and Davidson would both shit themselves if they knew I had this. Well, if they knew you had it, I guess. It’s yours.”

Tony smiled and looked at him from the other side of the bike, gently placing a hand on the leather seat. He’d repainted the body in black and accented it in blue, more align with Bucky’s current tastes than either his own or the military’s army-green obsession. It was perfectly restored, a bit clunkier than any modern bike, but stronger for its heart.

“Do you like it?”

Bucky place his hand on the handlebar and remembered times mostly forgotten.

“...Yeah,” he admitted quietly. “I do, son.”

While it lasted, he’d absorb this moment. Tony smiled and jumped on the rear seat, pulling an army-style helmet out of one of the saddlebags. He tossed the red ribbon onto the ground.

“C’mon, time for the joyride of your life. Do you realize half the shit Howard put in this thing was never even used?” He leaned forward and pushed in a panel painted with a blue star. It slid away, revealing a tempting red button. “I wanna know what that does.”

 _“Sergeant Barnes?”_ Bucky remembered.

He let his hand fall from the bike. This moment couldn’t last forever.

_Возвращение на родину._

“We have to talk, Tony.”

He shrugged his backpack off one shoulder and let it hang against his side. Solemnly, he withdrew the damning portfolio of his past.

Tony stared at the black star emblazoned on the notebook.

“About what happened after.”


	4. Homecoming

Three years, six months, and fifteen days had passed since the last time James Buchanan Barnes, the Winter Soldier, had seen Tony Stark.

His former daze of reality had settled back in.

There was no routine to follow. No one to protect. No old places to revisit, no lingering lives to watch pass away. Bucky faded into James’ solemn state and soon after the Soldier took hold. Without purpose, the Soldier could only wander, merely surviving. He kept himself safe. The occasional ugly reminder of his past would crop up and he would chop it down, moving from one forsaken Hydra safe house to the next until he couldn’t remember where they were anymore.

Once, he returned to the retrieval point he’d been meant to report to over a quarter of a century ago. Somewhere in the mess of trees that bordered a back road leading to the Pentagon, he’d stood for hours, listlessly waiting for a handler who was likely dead.

James led him away from that place, from the only mission the Soldier had ever failed, and kept him safely on populated streets.

The days ticked away. He noticed SHIELD agents following him from time to time; he made sure they all lost his trail, traveling between cities with a reckless abandon. His old motorcycle - not Steve’s, not Tony’s gift - puttered out somewhere between D.C. and New York.

Five years and two months after his eighty-first birthday, the Soldier sat at the mouth of an alleyway in New York City. The cover of Time magazine featured Tony this month - TONY STARK: A LEGACY OF HIS OWN - and he flipped through the article, reading bits and pieces of an overstated interview.

He was doing all right. James supposed that was good.

Coins dropped into the empty coffee cup he’d set down at his side.

_“You look like a homeless man when you don’t shave, Sergeant, sharpen up,”_ Edwin used to say. It had been the truth.

James let it pass. Maybe if enough people thought he was panhandling, he could pay the newsstand for the magazine he’d stolen.

Then there was the crisp, clear sound of someone clearing their throat. Expectant. He let his eyes slide to the ground before he addressed the person directly, blearily resigning himself to the interaction, and saw a pair of shined heels pointed his way. Female, presumably. Prada by the hint of red undersole. Expensive.

She cleared her throat again. James looked up.

“Mr. Stark.” A kind, red-headed woman looked down on him. She clutched a professional portfolio to her chest and slowly knelt down to his level, knees locked together as they peeked out from underneath her skirt.

When he spoke, his voice felt as rough as… well, everything about him.

“You’re…”

He knew who she was. Memories faded as quickly as his thoughts, these days. Grasping reality was difficult.

“Pepper. Pepper Potts. Remember me?”

She gently tugged the brim of his ballcap. His eyes watered. She was hard to forget.

“Pepper. Ma’am.”

* * *

Awkward was the only word to describe the way he was sitting on the edge of the hotel bed. Pepper had talked him into a shower and then promptly stolen his clothes and disappeared, leaving him to trust his modesty to a towel.

_Be back soon,_ was the note she’d left behind. _Stay put._

Soon.

He couldn’t decide what her angle was. Reading Pepper had always been difficult, but there was usually some hint of motivation behind her actions. Some morsel of information.

Instead, the only morsel she’d left him this time was food on the table. More than just a morsel, honestly - she’d ordered three meals and plenty to drink.

It was touching to have someone remember his monstrous appetite.

He was halfway through the second plate and considering the next when she returned. Fork shoved in his mouth and damp hair still clinging to his unshaven face, he was acutely aware of his state of undress. Why did it matter? There was no clear reason, but he felt like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar - except he was nearly stark naked and there were no cookies in sight.

Done fumbling with the door locks as she managed her haul, Pepper finally turned around to face him.

“I… ah…”

She stopped short in the way that most people did when they came across something unexpected or uncouth. James’ expression immediately transitioned into something that meant _I’m sorry_ as he pulled the utensil out of his mouth, metal hand firmly clasped around the towel at his waist.

“Oh. Good.” Like a dog shaking off water, she simply stood a bit straighter and rolled her shoulders back. She was unbelievably smooth. “Don’t worry, this isn’t the worst thing I’ve caught a Stark doing. Honestly, it’s refreshing.”

Humor twinkled in her eyes. Pepper Potts, God among women, was fazed by nothing. She’d have been a good spy in another life.

For the first time in a while, James felt a little bit more like himself.

_“She has a way about making you feel like… like you’re you,”_ Tony had rambled once, on some tirade about how he was definitely not in love with his assistant, absolutely not, how dare you insinuate otherwise. _“Grounding. That’s the word. She’s grounding. Get shocked with lightning and she won’t give two shits, she’ll make sure you didn’t blow a circuit and replace the fuses while she’s at it. In heels. Speaking of which, she bought new ones recently. They’re nice - I mean, those legs- No, wait. Technically I bought them recently, I have great taste, happy birthday to you, Pep.”_

She dropped her bags onto the edge of the bed and pulled out a palm pilot, swiping the stylus across the screen.

“The car will be here in about an hour, Mr. Stark. Can you be ready by then?”

Utensils clattered on plates as James hastily tidied up after himself and stood. Pepper glanced up to see him nodding.

“You might want to shave in the meantime. Not all of it, but…”

Suddenly self-conscious, he rubbed at his jaw. He’d let it grow out, never overly concerned about he looked. So long as he didn’t look like Bucky Barnes - the clean shaven soldier that he had been - there was no reason to upkeep appearances.

“...something like what it was, maybe,” she suggested kindly.

He nodded. Questions nagged at the back of his mind, but by the time he opened his mouth she was already answering them.

“You’ve seen the headlines, I’m sure.” Stowing her palm pilot away, she began to unpack the shopping bags. Plain black t-shirt and black pants, paired with new boots and a dark metal watch. Then came a not-too-expensive looking leather jacket and matching gloves, the right fingerless and the left not. “Mr. Stark is… well, he’s Tony.”

When she stepped away, Bucky approached and swiftly pulled the t-shirt over his head. She calmly turned her back to him as she continued talking. Somehow, this seemed routine for her.

“Parties, girls, work. Since you left, that’s how he distracts himself. If it’s not a party, it’s a project. Military contracts.”

James’ jaw set as he buttoned his pants. He made some noise of it so she knew she when she could turn back around. She did, her expression somewhat resigned.

“Why are you here?” He fastened the watch around his wrist a bit too tightly and began to adjust it accordingly. The gruffness of his own voice shook him. How long had it been since he’d needed to speak to anyone?

“Tony’s been looking for you. For a while, actually. You’re not an easy man to find, Mr. Stark-”

“Bucky.” he interrupted abruptly. Why should he carry the Stark name after all he’d done? “My name is Bucky.”

Pepper hesitated, but when she spoke her professionalism never faltered.

"Mr. Barnes, he wants to see you.”

Those words hitched in his throat. It didn’t seem logical or probable. Why would the son of the people he’d murdered want to see him, after all this time? The truth had been rough and harsh; Tony had taken it in equal stride.

_“GET OUT.”_

Their history proved null and void in the wake of that betrayal.

“Why?” Bucky finally asked, catching her gaze.

Slowly, kindly, Pepper shook her head. “Give him a chance, Mr. Stark.”

“Bucky.”

“Bucky.”

She approached, reaching out cautiously to touch his arm, hesitating only slightly before she met his gaze. He watched her.

“What happened wasn’t your fault.” There was something unfamiliar and kind in her voice, like an echo of a memory that had never happened. “Do you realize that?”

It wasn’t a memory. It wasn’t even a ghost of one. What pulled at Bucky’s heart and stopped the breath in his lungs was _want_ , pure and unfiltered, and the violent rush of emotion that followed drowned all the words he might’ve ever thought to say.

_It wasn’t your fault._

The Soldier ceased to exist in that heart-wrenching moment. The fog of James evaporated and Bucky stood in front of Pepper, raw, her words seared into his mind.

“You took him in,” Pepper was still talking. Bucky heard her, watching her through wide, sharp eyes. Seeing those words leave her lips hurt enough to make him look way, unintentionally shielding his expression when his hair fell in front of his face. “You could have killed him, Bucky, but you didn’t. You took him home. He told me.”

A vivid memory of a baby crying in a backpack rocketed to the forefront of his mind. Looking down on the sleeping infant, gingerly setting him on the doorstep of the mansion he’d been casing for six months. His gloves were still covered in Howard’s blood.

_“Sergeant Barnes?... Don’t hurt them.”_

“Give him a chance,” she said softly. “Give yourself a chance.”

* * *

The car dropped him off at a corner bar in Brooklyn. He climbed out some hundred feet away from the establishment, stepping out of the vehicle as it idled with Ms. Potts inside.

From this vantage point, he could clearly see Steve’s motorcycle parked out front. A man leaned against it, one arm tucked across his chest as he focused on a small cellular phone. He was dressed sharply, a pair of sunglasses obscuring his face, but James knew who he was looking at. It was impossible not to.

The beard was strange to see in person, he thought. It graced all his magazine covers and newspaper articles, but seeing Tony with facial hair made him seem… old. Older, at least. Not a thick-headed kid with too much money and too little restraint.

The phone buzzed as he drew closer. Tony shoved it in his jacket pocket, not sparing a glance up as he reached down into one of the bike’s saddlebags, rummaging around inside. Bucky expected to be ignored, or screamed at, or even ambushed by SHIELD. What he didn’t expect was for Tony to speak to him so clearly.

“Listen.” He withdrew a red-and-black notebook from the bike.

Bucky stopped short. Tony pulled his sunglasses off as he straightened up, looking at the notebook in his hands. Whatever thoughts were rattling around in his head were a mystery. It was always ready, fire, aim with this kid - now he was holding the keys to the world’s best assassin in his hands. Tapping it against his palm, nervous. Bucky wasn’t sure what to expect.

He pushed off the bike in one swift movement, abruptly confronting the man he’d ordered away five years ago.

“This.” Tony shook the notebook in the open air between them. “This is bullshit.”

Bucky didn’t know what to say. Tony was shortening the distance between them.

“I don’t know what else to call it. Bullshit, horseshit, a load of steaming crap on Grandma’s doorstep.”

When he finally looked at him, there was anger in his eyes. Intense, but constrained, carefully controlled.

“But what blows my mind more than this manchurian shit is the fact you survived it.”

People were milling around them, going about their business as Tony brandished Hydra’s best-kept secret in broad daylight. The Soldier was starkly aware of their public setting. He understood it, even, despite all the risks it presented. Tony seemed to, too. His voice lowered.

“...Look, it’s fucked up. It’s all fucked up, Buck, and I hated you. I _hated_ you.” That word stung like poison, piercing like fangs coated in venom. “Then I found something.”

Anxiety crept up into his chest. Maybe it did the same to Tony, too, because there was the slightest tremor in his hands as he presented a folded piece of paper.

“Edwin.”

It was all the explanation Tony seemed inclined to give. Bucky cautioned himself as he took the paper, still silent as he began unfolding it. Defusing bombs was less nerve-wracking. He’d killed heads of state with practiced ease, but this one piece of paper was crumpling his resolve.

He opened it, examined it, and immediately let it fall from his hands.

_Желание_  
Ржaвый  
Семнадцать  
Рассвет  
Печь  
Девять  
Добросердечный  
Возвращение на родину.  
_Один.  
_ _Г_ _рузовой вагон._

_Don’t let me hurt him._

It was written in his handwriting, scrawled on a crumpled piece of paper that had been carefully folded for almost thirty years. He didn’t remember writing it. The Asset never should have known his triggers or his conditioning. But that was undeniably his scratch, his message. _Don’t hurt them,_ Howard had pleaded. _Don’t let me hurt him,_ Bucky had begged, fighting through brainwashing with only a pen and a piece of paper.

Tony hitched up his pants and bent down to retrieve it. The world around him functioned, but Bucky failed to function with it.

“Careful,” he chided, folding it back up and tucking it into his blazer. “Wouldn’t want to lose that, would we?”

Bucky said nothing. He swallowed hard past all the hesitation in his throat, unable to find anything to say.

“He wrote me a letter, you know. Found it with this.” Tony continued, taking him by the arm and pulling him away from the steady stream of passersby, closer to the motorcycle. “Explained everything. Don’t know when he wrote it, but I found it with his things, with that note. I called Aunt Peggy. If she could’ve killed me over the phone, she would’ve, and then I had agents knocking down my door and giving Obadiah a heart attack - do you know how much they care about what happens to you? They thought you might go ballistic, revert or something, I don’t know.”

Bucky focused on a loose piece of asphalt near Tony’s shoe. Breathe in, breathe out, he coached himself. In and out.

“Anyway. I want you to tell me what happened.”

He tensed. Focusing all this nervous energy into clenching his fists, he managed to look up. The only thing that prevented a cold sweat from breaking out was his willpower alone.

“I need to know, Buck.”

It was a genuine plea. A request. Something like an ultimatum, but not.

“All I know right now is that it wasn’t really you.”

An olive branch.

“Not here,” the Soldier managed to say. Relief and grief were flooding away any other voices he might’ve had.

“Anywhere,” Tony agreed.


	5. Iron Man

There were things that didn’t change when Bucky came back into the Stark family.

Tony still partied. He still dated whomever he pleased, did whatever he wanted, and worked until he fell asleep in the garage. Bad habits died hard and there was no point trying to slow him down. Once he’d burned through his interest or energy, he’d crash, and then the cycle would start over.

Bucky kept traveling. Tony didn't need him hanging around and there was more to the world than the inside of the mansion. It was time to stop being hunted. Time to take back control. Hydra was already withering, its members now old, retired and dying. The people who might've stopped him, who might've known the Winter Soldier, weren't a threat anymore. Rooting them out was easy. Those last loyal stragglers kept secrets that the Soldier meant to tackle; until they were found, however, he was content with weeding out the secrets he already knew. 

He was in D.C. following a lead when Pepper called his burner phone. It was early January, winter's cold still biting the air when he pulled his bike off into an alleyway to answer her call. His breath fogged the air when he realized this was the first time he’d ever heard her cry.

Tony had gone to Afghanistan. He wasn’t going to come back as scheduled.

The Winter Soldier left the capital on the first flight out. Twenty-eight missed calls lit up his phone like a Christmas tree when he landed. Rhodey was there on the tarmac waiting, having interrupted his commercial flight with a military escort.

“I need your help, man.” Voice amplified by megaphone from the runway below, it was impossible to hide the sound of hope. Of desperation. “Tony needs you.”

The Soldier slung his backpack over his shoulder, looking down on them from the door of the plane. Military, everywhere. Airforce. Lightly armed. Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes presiding over the gathering, free hand up in relative surrender.

He pulled the brim of his hat down farther and popped up the collar of his jacket.

“I know.”

* * *

The helicopter hovered in place above the compound. Below, in the sprawling disarray that was stockpiles and tents nestled in a mountain range, desert weary men scrambled to find their weapons, pointing at the sky in panicked urgency. There was nothing particularly unique about this - men always moved to action when unknown forces came to visit. Above, however, was a singular force they could have never anticipated.

The Winter Soldier hung freely out the side of the helo, secured only by his hold on a grab bar, observing this panicked response. A gaggle of men were escorting someone into the safety of a cave as the other men worked to find their places – a commander, perhaps, or someone of relative importance. A target to mark. These hideaways always had a cave, and those caves always had a tunnel system; whatever was inside was a mystery to him, but these outposts were becoming routine. It was all the Soldier had explored in the last few months.

This was his thirteenth mission. A series of bloody trails were all he had left behind in his wake, one of the two consistencies he had left: killing men who knew pretended to know nothing about Tony Stark, and dodging the weapons that Stark Industries had built. Every outpost had them, every cave and desert path that these people operated on – weapons checked with Tony's logo on their side. There was something wrong baking out here in the Afghan sun. Whatever it was, finding Tony was certainly the first step in discovering what it was.

A man below aimed a missile launcher up at them.

“Watch it,” the Soldier warned.

The aircraft maneuvered sharply to avoid incoming fire. Behind him, Colonel Rhodes cursed, scrambling for a hold so he wouldn't go tumbling out the other open side. The Soldier remained posed, not unlike a gargoyle looking down on a city, holding fast with his metal arm. One foot pressed on the exposed railing to lean out farther into the air; the other bent into the aircraft body itself. His mask swung open from his face, hinging open on an attached ear piece that secured his communicator.

“You sure about this?” Rhodey called over the blades.

The Soldier reached back his hand and someone handed him a weapon. He butted the rifle against his hip, judging their distance to the ground. They were flying low, roughly three hundred feet up, compromising everyone's safety and the chopper's maneuverability. Hostiles below had opened fire on them. This would have to be good enough, he thought.

“Start circling,” was his only response.

“This isn't a safe drop, Sarge,” the pilot warned.

“Not your problem.”

Before anyone really realized what he was about to do, before tactical support could even prepare to deploy with him, the Winter Soldier jumped. No safety line, no parachute – he was in a literal free fall into hostile territory, armed to the teeth and protected only by his combat gear and a metal arm.

When he hit the ground, dropping hard into the stockpiles, he tucked into a roll to kill some of the shock. Continued momentum threw him straight off the uppermost stack of cargo and onto the next; he rolled back up onto his feet effortlessly. People were screaming. His ankle would probably hurt tomorrow. That didn't matter.

As he pressed onward, dropping down off the stacks completely, they opened fire again. He led with his metal arm to ricochet the bullets while he moved between cargo stacks. Finding cover, he ducked low and pulled a grenade from his belt, biting the pin and tossing it over into the path between himself and the others. It triggered a chain of explosions on the other side of the compound, destroying countless boxes of Stark weapons, leaving the men to run for safety. He tracked them as they did, standing above cover and picking them off one by one. Others not in immediate danger attempted to flank him – he spun hard on his heel, greeting them each with a bullet between the eyes.

There was a brief moment afterward where he had a moment to take stock of his surroundings.

The cave that the commander had been escorted into was immediately to his left, up a short, unobstructed hill. Either side had unmanned weapons and stores of cargo; he would be exposed the moment he stepped out into the path. Directly opposite him, across the pathway was the inferno he had started – but there were likely still hostiles there, living and waiting for an opportunity. Above, the helicopter was moving in fast for another sweep.

He snapped his mask into place and pulled down the tactical sunglasses that were strapped to his head. The static over comm crackled in his ear.

“Cover me.”

“ _Coming in hot,”_ was Rhodey's response.

He had approximately five seconds. He could hear another group of men moving in close, trying to hide behind in the stockpile and ambush him. He dropped back down behind cover.

_Five._

He reloaded his rifle.

_Four._

He threw a flash grenade to cover his trail.

_Three._

Thumbing loose a second grenade pin, he lobbed it high and far, arching it so it rolled into the cave's mouth. It erupted in a plume of smoke.

_Two._

He ran for it. Men yelled behind him; he could feel the target on his back, large and bright, or maybe just pin-pricked with a laser.

_One._

Gunfire hailed down from the sky. The chopper blades sang and the compound was distracted, giving him the momentary peace he needed to clear the hill. In seconds he was safe inside the smoke screen, obscured to hostiles from all sides.

“ _We're comin' back 'round, Sarge. Good luck in there.”_

All he was left with after that was the static of disconnection. He pried loose his in-ear and listened to the cave.

Silence reigned. It was abnormal for this sort of setting, foreboding and ominous, but it didn't stop him. The tense ambiance was fitting. Beyond the smoke, he could see a line of men waiting, their heat signatures lighting up on the inside of his glasses. Tony's upgrades to his gear never failed him.

One by one, they fell. Some fled to other tunnels when the firing began, but when he stepped out of the smoke screen some ran at him in moronic confidence. The few that didn't fall met him in hand-to-hand combat, which was arguably worse. Punches were thrown, evades; knives were pulled and disarmed. As he pressed his own knife into the throat of another, a lucky someone managed to jump onto his back. Before he could throw them off, he felt a knife in his shoulder.

Unfortunately for his attacker, the metal just scraped off metal. The Soldier spun and twisted free, rewarding him with a rifle butt to the face. He crumpled to his feet.

Other men flooded in from the tunnels. There was a commotion somewhere deeper inside – he could feel the vibration through the soles of his boots, a distant explosion reverberating in the rocks and dirt.

He leveled his rifle and took aim.

They ran straight past him before he took a shot, fleeing into the open desert.

Luckily, he saw the incoming missile in time to roll for cover. His glasses cracked when he hit the ground, tucking out of his roll against a tunnel wall. It shielded him from further harm and he blinked away the burn in his eyes as he discarded the broken gear on the ground.

Then he saw it.

Pressing harder against the dirt wall and peering around the corner, meaning to clock the rifle launcher, he was faced with an alltogether different opponent. A suit armor lumbered into view. It was impossible to describe it any other way, lacking reference; it was like a medieval suit of armor, but not, silver and three times larger than any man. Heavily weaponized. The helmet was rounded, the body and shoulders seamed together in haphazard fashion, and the boots stomped in quakes. It headed towards something slumped over bags in the far back corner of the passage, away from him.

Movement at the cave's mouth caught his peripherals. A bald man with a long, hooked nose, balanced a missile launcher at his side, leveled at the suit of armor.

By the time the Soldier had taken aim, it was too late.

But the suit leaned back, managing to evade the attack and the missile careened to hit the cave wall behind it. It immediately returned fire, opening a hatch on its forearm and sparking the launch of an explosive with the other. Whoever that poor bastard had been burned to a crisp in the inferno.

The Soldier pressed himself harder against the cave wall, pulling his gun to his chest. He listened, trying to to get lost in stategizing. A hope flickered dangerously in his breast.

The unmistakable sound of Tony's voice filled the cave.

“I'm not leaving you, Yinsen.”

If this hadn't been a mission, if the Soldier hadn't been at the wheel in that precise moment, it would've all been over right then. Bucky's relief was crippling, but the Soldier harshly reigned him in. The target was located, yes, but he still needed to be extracted. Losing his composure would jeapordize the mission.

Still, perhaps he was louder than normal when he got to his feet – was he running? – because Tony twisted around in panic, the suit helmet discarded and his arm held up defensively. The Soldier pulled to a stop on instinct alone.

“You-”

He snapped free his mask and let it swing open. The whole of Tony collapsed inwards, relief rushing over him as his arm fell limply aside.

“Bucky.” Desperation. Grief.

He was moving before he realized what was happening. He dropped to his knees in front of his son, taking his face in his hands and moving it this way and that, examining all the damage. He was worse for the wear in a million ways, but he'd seen men survive in worse state than this.

“Buck.” Tony turned his face away, rejecting his care, but the Soldier wasn't insulted. There were more important things at hand.

He finally turned to the body that had earned Tony's attention.

It wasn't quite a body yet, he realized. It was an older man laying over a stockpile of rice, short of breath and badly injured. There were bullet holes beneath the blood on his chest. Bruises on his face, much like Tony's. His palor was quickly paling and the Soldier already knew he was gone, he really was just a body with a little bit of breath left in it, but Tony was begging.

“His name is Yinsen.”

Tony never begged, the Soldier thought.

“We need to get him out of here.”

The Soldier reached forward, gauging the man's pulse by his neck. It was deteriorating quickly.

“We have to go,” was all he said.

“We can't just leave him,” Tony argued.

“Colonel's circling. We have to go.”

“We can't-”

“Tony-”

“ _Dad._ ”

It made him pause. It always made him pause.

Once, he had been where Tony was now. Lost, forcing himself to survive. Broken somewhere in the depths of Hydra's will. Those ghosts passing through his eyes had been his and there was no telling how well he truly was beyond them, or what terrors were lurking deeper. When the adrenaline rush was gone, what would be left? Would leaving this dead man behind make things worse?

“Tony.”

“Please.”

Bucky supposed it didn't matter. Whatever armor Tony had made himself to escape had been good enough to get him this far. He likely would've been just fine without him.

With a resigned grunt, he attached his rifle to his back and thumbed his earpiece back in before bending low to lift Yinsen's body across his shoulders. A fireman's carry, good enough for walking. Yinsen protested weakly, but this fell on deaf ears. Maybe he would die. Maybe this was a wasted effort. But why add to the trauma when Tony thought there was a chance?

Standing tall, Yinsen's blood beginning to trickle down his metal arm, Bucky swung his mask back into place.

“Lead.”

Tony got to his feet and put the face of his helmet back on. The suit whirred and creaked around him. Bucky fell behind him, having no easy way to defend himself with Yinsen over his shoulders.

There was no banter. No snide remarks, no comments – they just walked forward, out into the light, beyond the cave and everything terrible that had happened inside. The remaining men opened fire at the bottom of the incline and Tony responded without mercy. Where they fired bullets, he unleashed hell; the arms or his suit poured with flames.

The crackle of his comms connected again.

“ _What is that?!”_ Rhodey demanded. There was a breathlessness to his tone.

“That's the target, Colonel.”

The helo was close, on another circle around the compound.

“ _What in the world did he do?”_

Tony's helmet tilted towards the sky.

“I've got something to do, first.” His voice echoed behind the metal.

“Do it from the sky.”

“The boots have got a lift to them, you can come get me.”

“Tony-”

“Get him out of here.”

He began to stomp down the hill, still unleashing hell onto the ill-gotten weapons marked with his name. Things began to catch with fire; stockpiles began to explode.

“ _Cool it!”_ The helicopter came in as low as it could. Tony relented for a moment when he saw a safety wire dropped from the sky for them.

“Go,” he yelled, turning back to Bucky. The helmet left him expressionless.

Cautiously, he took hold of the wire extended down to them. Despite a desperate want to yell at Tony until he was safely inside the helicopter, he understood. There was something that needed to be done – something he _had_ to do – and he wouldn't dare die in this desert. He'd come too far. He was going to survive.

“On the other side,” he said, with deafening finality.

“On the other side.”

He clipped himself to the wire by his belt and stuck his boot through the foot loop, wrapping his metal arm up and around Yinsen to secure him. He was still breathing. But for how long?

He tugged once on the wire. Ascension began. He didn't took his eyes off of Tony's metal suit and fire until he was close enough to drop Yinsen in the helicopter. Someone laid him out and began to look at his injuries.

“We're sending it back-”

Bucky unclipped the wire from its load point, effectively interrupting Rhodey.

“What're you-”

“It's gonna blow.” he warned. “Get us out.”

“But that's-”

It blew. The helicopter rocked violently to the side, dangerously off balance as explosives flew in the sky around them. Bucky slammed the door shut as the pilot over-corrected and sent them careening in the opposite direction, allowing everyone to either roll to a hard stop against the door or manage to hold themselves into place. He had a hand on Rhodey's shoulder to keep him from going anywhere.

“Tony-” he said, breathlessly, but Bucky shook his head.

The helicopter leveled out, gaining altitude quickly. The fire show was still going below, sending red and orange flames up towards them; artillery broke like fireworks.

“There,” he said, pulling him towards the pilot and pointing out the dirty windows. “That's him.”

Separate from the inferno below, there was a streak of smoke and silver flying through the open sky. It shot up, higher and higher, before it began to arch and find its downfall.

“That,” Rhodey said, grabbing the back of the pilot's seat. “Follow that.”

Bucky let him go. He took off his tactical mask and tossed it into an empty seat, sliding to the floor. No one stared at him, here. There was a job to do.

“You.”

It was a croaking voice that called for him. He looked down and saw Yinsen at his left side, his head propped up on a couple of rolled blankets as a medic looked him over. There wasn't going to be much he could do. He seemed to realize this, having no hesitation in pulling his plastic oxygen mask off to the side.

Bucky waited for him to continue.

“You,” Yinsen tried again, weakly stretching out his hand and touching the metal of his arm. “You... are his father?”

He had no answer for him in their current company. Whether or not Yinsen realized this, he took the silence as an opportunity to continue.

“He told me things, yes.” There was blood on the inside of his lips. “When we spoke of family... When we spoke... of the world...”

The helicopter tilted down as it chased after the shooting star that was Tony Stark. Yinsen groaned. Bucky moved closer, adjusting Yinsen cautiously in the hopes of making him more comfortable.

"Stay long enough to say goodbye, huh, buddy?” He said, speaking quietly. “We're almost there.”

Yinsen smiled blearily.

“It was good.” he said, patting his metal forearm. “It was good... that you came... It was good...”

Consciousness seemed to be fading. The helicopter was descending now, back down towards the open desert. Bucky knew he still had a mission to complete, but there was something that kept him at Yinsen's side before they finally landed.

“Thank you,” was the last thing he said to him before he stepped out into the desert sun.

Rhodey followed him as they ran across the sand dunes, out to the place where dust clouds marked Tony's landing. He ran faster than them all, crossing through soft sand in leaps and bounds; when he found him there in the mess of metal, he slid to him on his knees.

Tony looked up at him, blinking away sand, half buried in the desert.

“I'm not cleaning the sand out of your arm, you know.”

Bucky breathed a shaking sigh of relief as he gathered up the broken pieces of his life.

“I'm not cleaning the sand out of your everywhere.”

“Point.”

* * *

In the helicopter, Yinsen must’ve said something profound before he died. One of those things that change your perspective, Bucky thought, or follow you around until you die. Like _“Sergeant Barnes?”_ or _“Don't hurt them.”_ Maybe _“I'm with you to the end of the line,”_ or _“I'll never let anyone hurt you, kid.”_ Things that meant something. Things that changed you because you needed them to, not because you were conditioned to.

Whatever it was, it must’ve been heavy. Tony sat with Bucky on the floor of the helicopter, grieving and huddled under a thin blanket that didn’t do much for comfort. Rhodey fixed them a way home on the phone. The extraction team sat in respectful silence.

“What did he say?” Bucky spoke Russian for some privacy.

Slowly, cautiously, Tony leaned into his side. It was second nature to drape his arm over his shoulders and draw him in, resting his chin against the side of his head.

“Don't waste your life.”

* * *

There was a hole where his chest had been. A glowing blue heart over his real one that kept him from dying. It was a secret that Obadiah desperately wanted to pick apart.

“Does it ever stop hurting?” Tony wondered, watching Pepper leave up the stairs after she’d secured a new arc reactor into place.

Bucky shook his head, flexing his hand and watching the light reflect in scattered rays.

“Never did for me.”

Tony sighed.

“At least you don’t have to grow old with it.”

* * *

Obadiah showed his true colors eventually.

Bucky shielded Pepper from the explosion of the arc reactor, knowing that she was what Tony cared about most. There was no hesitation in putting a bullet between the eyes of Obadiah’s mangled carcass, just for good measure, as he carried away the battered body of his son.

He was still breathing. Barely conscious, holding onto life through sheer stubbornness alone.

“You moron,” he whispered, loading him into the ambulance himself. “That was Rogers-brand stupid, I hope you know that.”

“Glad to know you care, Dad.”

Blood trickled out of his mouth as he chuckled. Bucky knuckled his jaw lightly, so relieved.

“Moron.”


	6. Natalia Romanova

Moving Peggy Carter into a care home was easily one of the most difficult things Bucky had ever done. He'd flown from Los Angeles to London to help her family with the transition in Tony's place (he had an event in Monaco he said he couldn't miss, some sort of race) and now he sat in the hallway outside her bedroom door, taking a break. It was his last night here. Nurses were making their rounds through the facility, ignoring him as they ensured everyone had gone to their rooms for the night. A couple of older folk still shuffled through the halls. Bucky let his head rest back against the wall and he closed his eyes, letting his mind wander for a moment.

He and Peggy had never really been all that close during the war. They'd known each other, maybe eaten a meal or two together, and worked together through the Commandos, but their friendship had only existed on one condition: Steve. Through him they'd been friends. Without him, they'd either bickered or talked shit about how reckless Rogers was.

Tony had thrown a wrench in that dynamic. After him, they'd been forced to work around the awkward hole that was Steve Rogers. The past had been dismissed. Everything about the Winter Soldier was blatantly disregarded. Even with his crimes clearly acknowledged, Peggy (and by extension, SHIELD) had begrudgingly pardoned him. It was either make peace or worry about the Winter Soldier running around like a loose firecracker. Using a baby as bait on the line was uncouth, but it kept him in line better than trying to keep tabs on him. Everyone knew he could shake any trail - and he had, many times - but Peggy had seen the opportunity Tony presented. Whether or not she’d ever genuinely forgiven Bucky for the assassination would remain a mystery, but she had trusted him. That was enough.

Now she barely remembered him. He would never know what she thought. When she did have some fleeting moment of clarity, her mind was rarely in the right time. She either thought it was 1944 and they were waiting for their next assignment or she was meeting him for the first time after Hydra’s conditioning. Sometimes she thought he was Tony. Once, she’d called him Steve. It had to be confusing - Bucky hadn’t aged a day since he’d gotten his arm. He tried to hide it from her the best he could.

The phone rang inside her bedroom. He stood and went back inside, swallowing a sigh, hoping he wouldn't wake her. It was late. There were only a couple of people who could possibly be calling, but he didn’t recognize the number when he reached her desk.

“Peggy Carter’s room.” He didn’t sound like himself, he thought. Exhaustion crept into his whisper.

There was silence on the other end of the line. He could hear someone breathing. It wasn't overtly suspicious, but it made his skin crawl. Maybe they hadn’t heard him.

“Peggy Carter’s room. Who is this?”

“...Who’s this?” The voice answered back. It sounded familiar.

“A friend,” he answered stiffly. “It’s late.”

A pause. “I’ll just call back tomorrow. I’m sorry.”

The line disconnected abruptly. Slowly, Bucky set the phone back down on the receiver. Whoever that had been, he thought he might've met them before. That voice…

He shrugged off his curiosity. He didn’t have time to linger in the past when the people in the present were already fading away. Peggy’s mind was gone. Tony was treating the world like it was his last days on Earth. And Pepper… well, Pepper was just trying to hold everything together in the meantime.

Bucky took one last, long look at Peggy Carter. She slept soundly in bed, as peaceful as she could ever be. Nothing looked out of the ordinary when she was like this. That was what he wanted to remember.

“Goodbye, Miss Carter.”

* * *

“Sir, Mr. Stark has arrived.” JARVIS announced.

Bucky witnessed a flurry of activity happen as he stepped into the gym. Tony was leaning out over the boxing ring, gesturing towards Pepper intently as she hurriedly turned a younger woman away from him. Happy waved with a boxing glove and Bucky nodded back, eyeing the scene with mild concern. He had a bone to pick with Tony - who was more erratic than ever, jumping between things with the speed of a man bargaining for his life - and he was hot off a jet from London.

“Let’s play hide-and-go-seek. Turn around, count to ten, etcetera.” Tony was saying. Pepper batted away his rambling over her shoulder, talking in undertones with the other woman. She was shorter and strikingly shaped, with vibrant red hair that was the only thing distracting Bucky from being less than gentlemanly. A faint memory itched in the back of his mind.

“Mr. Stark,” greeted Happy, “How was London?”

He blinked out of his thoughts. “Cheery. What’s this?”

“That?” Tony shrugged, pulling off his hood. “That’s from legal. And don’t you just sneak into my house and pretend you don’t know what’s going on. Unconvincing, no points awarded. How is she, anyway? Did you send my love?”

Bucky adapted easily to Tony’s shifting gears.

“She says 'happy birthday' and that you’re an idiot who needs to come clean.” he tried.

“Whatever.” Tony crooked his finger and Bucky complied, joining him in the ring. Changing targets at break neck speed, he pointed at the backs of the women. “What’s your name, lady?”

“Rushman, Natalie Rushman.”

Her voice rang like an alarm bell. There was a shuffling of papers and Pepper nodded.

"She's cleared," Pepper announced.

“All right, front and center. Into the church.”

“You’re not seriously going to-”

Pepper’s complaint faded as Natalie turned to the boxing ring.

“If it pleases the court, which it does,” Tony was saying.

Bucky recognized her before she recognized him. There must’ve been a tell in his expression, something that made her hesitate, because she paused mid-step when they locked eyes.

The Soldier remembered a ballerina. Little girls standing in rooms littered with dead men. His words guiding them, his skills loaned to raise the next generation of spies and secrets.

Natalie barely missed her beat. Her gaze lingered, wary, but she bravely conceded to Tony’s summons.

Bucky cautioned himself as she stepped into the ring. Happy tapped him on the shoulder with his glove.

“I better take this. Wouldn’t wanna scare her off, yeah?” He was smiling like an idiot, already falling into her game. Bucky shrugged him off and stepped forward instead. “Well- I- ok, then.”

Natalie stared up at him with deceptive passivity. Tony was distracted, bickering with Pepper as they occupied a couch too small for the both of them. Unpredictable as Tony could sometimes be, Bucky could already tell he was falling victim to his own habits. Pretty women made him predictable.

“It’s nice to meet you,” She turned her game on him with soft eyes and parted lips. He remembered seeing the same look years ago, in a time where the Winter Soldier had dared to play with emotion. “Mister…?”

When he didn’t answer, Happy answered for him.

“Stark. We call him Mr. Stark. Long story.”

“Really long story, all covered in your shiny new NDA,” Tony piped in. “You speak Russian, Rushman? Says it in your file.”

“Да.” _Yes_ , she said, skillfully faking an American accent. “Are you spying on me, Mr. Stark?”

He smirked, glancing up to her as he elbowed Pepper in the side. She rolled her eyes and said something about an HR problem. Bucky stopped listening. He rolled his shoulders forward instead - the whirring sound was unmistakable, the way his hand creaked as he made fists - and he tilted his chin up as Natalie whipped her head toward him.

“Здрасте, Наталья.” _Hello, Natalia._

Her eyes darted to his arm and back up to his face. Watching her facade deteriorate was like watching a car crash in slow motion. A puncture hole in a tire as her composure flattened; fear as she rolled off the road, careening into a ravine. Panic bled across her expression like leaking gasoline. Everything crumpled as she shifted her weight back on one foot, one hand twitching towards something behind her.

Decades ago, in a dark room where mercy went unpracticed, he remembered her doing the same thing. He remembered grabbing her wrist when she pulled her gun and disarming her, attempting to spin her off her feet. Then there was the tangle of her legs around his neck and shoulders when she used his own momentum against him - the sharp pain of her fists across his skull.

Something deep within him faulted, like an earthquake shifting. Soviet memories crested over him. A wash of anxiety broke on the shore, triggering an extreme response.

“Woah, buddy!” Shocked curses resounded in unison as Tony and Pepper stood.

Happy moved between him and Natalia, staring down the barrel of his gun with both hands up in surrender. “Good god, man. You all right in there? It’s me, it’s Happy-”

“Move,” Bucky warned.

“Mr. Stark.” Natalia was pretending at fear. Or maybe she wasn't. Either way, Tony obliged it, climbing up into the ring with them.

“Stand down, Hogan, c’mon, don’t be dumb,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. Slowly, Happy moved away, leaving Natalia exposed.

"Tony-" She reached behind her back for something, attempting to hide the movement in his side. Bucky pulled the hammer back on his pistol. Her weapon failed to draw.

“Okay, Natalie,” he began, ignoring Bucky completely. “You’ve got about five seconds before Crazy Eyes over here tries to put a bullet in you.”

“Put the gun down, Mr. Stark, please,” Pepper was saying behind them.

“So that means you’ve got about four seconds to explain to me how you spooked him.” His grip on her shoulder tightened, no longer comforting, anchoring her in place.

She took a deep breath. Bucky stepped forward, gun aimed steady.

“Three,” he warned.

When she still said nothing, Bucky spoke instead.

“She’s KGB. I trained her.”

She tilted her chin up, betraying nothing. Infiltrating the inner circle was a good way to get close to a target, which was, Bucky assumed, Tony. She clearly hadn’t anticipated a problem like the Soldier.

"Two,” Tony counted down. “KGB? Really?”

“I’m not,” she managed to say. “Mr. Stark-”

A window shattered in the far corner of the room. Sharp pain struck him in the forehead before he could react, white hot and blinding. Something scraped sharply against his skull. He barely had time to realize what it was - an arrow? - before pain drowned out everything else. Electricity rocked through him. Tony yelled. Before he fell, he could smell his own skin burning, his metal arm simply failing to function.

Memory ceased.

* * *

 

There were footsteps on tile. Loud, thudding footfalls.

Boots, Bucky recognized. Military issue.

A door opened and closed. Someone sighed. Wheels whirred close by, accompanied with the familiar sound of robotic motors. It stopped somewhere farther away, chirping sadly.

“I know, bud,” someone said in response.

The black behind his eyelids began to clear in slow acknowledgement of the dim light filtering through. A weight lingered on his body, like heavy soil over a coffin. Synapses fired sluggishly. There was something hard and cold pressed against his forehead.

Hands, arms, legs; he mentally ticked off the presence of each of his limbs and digits. So far as he could tell everything was where it should be, mechanical or otherwise. Any attempt to move was stifled by that weight he couldn’t shake. It took him a few moments to realize he was being restrained.

_Tony._

Stay calm, he reminded himself. Breathe. This was temporary.

He exhaled slowly through his nose. The sound of movement across the room quieted.

His name was James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky. He was born and raised in Brooklyn. His best friend was Steve Rogers. He was an adoptive father to Tony Stark.

“Mornin’, Sleeping Beauty.”

Plastic wheels skittered across the floor. A rolling chair, likely carrying someone in it.

Cracking his eyes open was a slow process. Blinking didn’t seem to help restore his vision. Before he could try and focus further, he was rudely accosted with a pen light. It flashed across both his pupils, sharply painful.

“Good,” said his attacker. Bucky blinked again and tried to shield himself from further abuse, but only succeeded in testing his restraints. They held fast. “Patience, old man, let me finish.”

“Tony,” he realized.

“Who else?”

The world finally agreed to focus. Tony was leaning over him, haloed by bright workshop lights while he prodded at the forehead brace. There was a display panel on the other side, which garnered most of his attention. Concern colored his expression, drawn with tired, weary lines. His shirt hung loose - a cluster of dark grid marks discolored the skin around his neck, stretching up from underneath his shirt like unnatural veins.

“What happened?”

“You got five thousand volts to the face, courtesy of Legolas.”

Tony snapped his fingers, startling Bucky only slightly. Music started playing in the workshop, bordering on uncomfortably loud.

“Doc’?” he called over the speakers, pulling back and rolling himself towards the main computers. The restraint chair was positioned near the Iron Man suit display, each of the masks looking down on them with menacing disregard.

_“What would you like to hear, Sir? Your own medical report, or-?”_

“Don’t get snippy with me, JARVIS.”

Bucky closed his eyes. He pressed against his restraints, rolling his metallic wrist and feeling the servos hum. JARVIS was hinting at things.

_“Brain activity has returned to normal. Vital signs are holding steady. I detect no heart arrhythmia.”_

“I wasn’t triggered. Why did you even– Let me out, Tony.”

“Not yet. We both know what step one was, Buck, I wasn’t going to take chances. And you tried to shoot my assistant,” he responded, tone wavering like a parent deciding punishment. “You don’t get spooked. Not normal.”

Bucky tried to look at him, but only succeeded in straining his neck against the brace. He resigned himself to glaring at the ceiling.

“Me, not normal? That’s rich. Signing your company over to your assistant ain’t normal, kid,” he bit back.

“ _Signed_. I signed my company away to my _former_ assistant, which is well within my rights.” He rolled back over to the chair, hard stopping himself on the armrest. “And when you fire your assistant, you have to get a new one, and they don’t generally like to be shot at!”

At this angle, Bucky could only shoot him an angry glare.

“You heard me talk to her. Her name is Nata-”

“I KNOW!”

Tony threw his hands up in the air and stood, stalking away. Bucky could only listen to him pace.

“Because nothing in my life can ever be normal, just for _once_ , Legal hired a spy and then she tried to honeypot me!” He imagined Tony was gesturing wildly with his hands, like he always did when he was frustrated. “And you know her, because _of course_ you would, so you try to commit murder in my gym. My gym, Bucky, that’s a sacred space-”

“She’s KGB-”

“She’s SHIELD.”

Bucky blinked. Tony suddenly came back into view, leaning over him with his hands on either shoulder of the chair. There was a wild frustration in his eyes.

“Nick Fury was here before you woke up. Came stomping in asking why I had a former soviet sleeper cell trying to shoot up his agent, acting like it wasn’t a problem that he had somebody on my tail. First it was super-secret boyband, now this. Not to mention Howard’s crazy ex-boyfriend’s son slinging around arc reactor whips like it’s playtime.”

Bucky pushed up against the headpiece, managing to turn slightly. He pushed against them again, rattling against the metal.

“Why do you think I’m here?”

“You’re here because it’s May. For the party.” Tony gestured widely, smiling in a way that said he wasn’t happy at all. He stepped away again, infuriatingly out of sight. “You didn’t- well, you came at the right time, ‘cause one hell of a party is what I need right now. Happy birthday to me.”

“Tony.” He pulled at the restraints that secured his metal arm, grinding against both his and its capabilities. The vibration tremored in his teeth. “I know you.”

“Yeah? And what do you know, old man?”

He shook hard in the chair, creaking the joints and testing bolts. Tony’s footsteps stopped - there the sound of was glass clinking as he poured himself a drink. “You know you can’t get out of that, so stop it. You’ll just hurt-”

With reckless disregard, Bucky slammed his head against the forehead brace. Pain struck his vision as the chair bit back with an electric shock. His left arm spasmed briefly, instigating more waves of pain. Frustrated beyond belief, he spat out what he had come to say in the beginning.

“I’m here because I know you’re dying, you moron.”

Silence. Then came a hiss of pressure releasing, followed by a satisfying click. His restraints opened and Bucky threw himself upright, stepping and stumbling out of the chair like it might suddenly change its mind. Tony stared at him from behind his computer monitors in justified surprise, glass of whiskey half raised.

“You… Jarv-”

_“I’m not sorry, Sir.”_

Bucky turned to the man he had raised, facing one of the terrors he didn’t like to acknowledge. Tony aged. He didn’t. But he’d be damned if he ever let him go without a fight.

Still, this was the first time he’d ever seen him speechless. Or in a leopard print robe, for that matter.

“If I can’t kill what’s trying to kill you, then I can’t do anything,” Bucky announced, rolling his shoulder forward until the connections felt right. “But with your mind-”

Tony’s expression flinched. Bucky paused to analyze. Pain, disbelief, frustration, vulnerability; he was never this easy to read.

“Not everything can be fixed. The fix is what’s killing me, man.” Tony pressed his hand against his chest, where the blue glow of the arc reactor lay. In a fit of emotion and rash decision making, he reached under his shirt and pulled it out, holding his heart between them. “Palladium. The only thing that makes this work. That’s what’s killing me.”

“Put that back in.”

“Bucky-”

“Put it back.”

With a grimace, Tony obliged. He relaxed when it firmly clicked back into place.

“Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.” He tugged his shirt back down and tied off his robe. “So I’m making sure things are right before-”

“Don’t.” He came around the table, standing toe-to-toe with him. “Listen to me. I knew someone like you. He was fifty pounds of fight in a ten-pound bag. Scrappy little punk. Angry at the world and the hand he got dealt, but you know what? That never stopped him.”

Tony’s face remained stoic. It was painted with that sort of anger that came from someone who was too stubborn to listen. He just shook his head and turned away, swigging down his drink.

“There’s no serum to save me.” His voice was cold. “I’ve tried everything. Every possible combination of-”

“Then you haven’t tried hard enough.”

Tony shook his head, folding into a chair at the table. It was a signal of retreat. The conversation was over.

Bucky needed a shower. He needed to sleep. Arguing with Tony was an old pastime and he knew when he’d hit the brick wall.

“Try again,” was his final plea.

JARVIS opened the workshop door across the room, signaling his exit. Tony shook his head, clearly absorbed in his own emotions as he turned his back to his father.

“Try not to shoot my fake assistant on your way out.”

* * *

_"With your mind, you can do anything.”_

 Bucky never left. He stayed on the rooftops wherever Tony went, waiting for the breakthrough.

 He watched Rhodey come and go with an Iron Man Suit.

 Natalia avoided him at all costs. He’d decided not to shoot her unless she shot at him first.

 He waited.

 The breakthrough would come. It had to come.

 He wasn’t sure what he would do if it didn’t.

 When it finally did, it came in the form of Tony frisbee-ing him in the side of the head with a wall clock. Splitting headaches were his favorite way to start the day.

 “Hey!” he was standing on his balcony below, armed with a vase from the foyer. “Hey, old man!”

 It was dusk. Bucky slowly pushed himself up off his back - couldn’t a man nap in peace? - and looked at the offending piece of decor. It was a garish depiction of Captain America’s shield.

 “I need help with my homework! The heavy lifting, anyway.” Tony called up. “Bring the clock. It’s important.”

* * *

Thwarting Justin Hammer’s Iron Man knock-offs was a wonderful way to end a tremendously stressful month. Ivan Vanko was a band-aid that needed ripped off, or maybe a splinter under a fingernail that needed pulling out, which everyone had been more than happy to do. Bucky imagined that taking him down had been just as satisfying for Tony as the explosions at the Expo had been for him.

There was another positive that found its way out of the wreckage of Stark Expo. He and Natalia had had some bonding time (read: shouting at each other in Russian through earpieces) while she took down Hammer’s security team. If Tony had been listening, he probably had some inkling of his former relationship with the Black Widow. An uneasy alliance had been born.

Iron Man saved the day, as he always did.

They all went home with hopes that life would go back to relative normalcy.

If only.


	7. Two Steps Back

Bucky’s room in the mansion was devoid of any personal decor. It was outfitted in the same way that all of Tony’s room were: lavishly, with expensive furniture and tasteful art on the walls, sleek technology integrated seamlessly with the rest of the house. But it wasn’t a guest room - it was Bucky’s room, and Tony and Pepper would’ve been damned if they left him without a few extra additions.  In the back of a closet filled with dark clothes and combat gear, Tony had installed an extensive armory wall protected with bionectic locks. Pepper had chosen the desk built into the corner wall, matched with a tall bookshelf stacked with historical volumes and strategy manuals. A lit black box display hung over it, neatly framing black-and-white pictures from the war; Steve, Bucky, and the Howling Commandos going about their business, fighting for their country. His U.S. military dog tags were pinned inside.

The bed was the main focal point, pushed up against the wall in the middle of the room. He lay on it now, propped against the headboard as he stared out the balcony doors. His sheets preserved his modesty.

This was one of the few rooms in the mansion that didn’t have walls of pane glass overlooking the ocean. It had a single set of double doors that opened to a small balcony instead, too high up and oddly placed for anyone to reach it from the outside. There was a black patio set with a small table out there where he usually spent his day reading or researching. Sometimes he just stared off into space and watched the ocean. Natalia - no, _Natasha_ sat there now, one bare leg crossed over the other, wearing one of his shirts and drinking a glass of red wine.

Slowly, he stood from his bed, stepping into a pair of discarded sweatpants and pulling them up over his hips. His current dog tags - not American issue, nor Hydra - bounced against his chest as he did.

Natasha smiled over her shoulder at him as he dragged his desk chair onto the balcony to join her. She had her phone in her other hand, which she locked swiftly.

"Clint says he’s not sorry,” she said softly, watching him sit down and prop his feet up on the low table between them. “He’s… protective.”

Bucky grunted dismissively, leaning back in the chair. “He turned you?”

“Yeah.” She took a sip of her wine. Wherever she had stolen it from, no one would notice until tomorrow. “Budapest.”

He laughed in short surprise. “That was _you_? Talk about a shit-show.”

“If memory serves, _you_ made it the shit-show.” She shook her head. “I was just trying to get out alive.”

“Not my fault someone wanted you dead.”

It wouldn’t be funny to anyone else, but she laughed.

He shook his head, folding his hands in his lap. This was nice. Talking to someone he knew from before, who still had their mind and who understood. Natasha was one thing from his past that hadn’t been all bad.

“So,” he prodded her leg with one foot. “SHIELD, huh?”

She poked him in return. “So, Tony, huh?”

“Ah, c’mon. Not fair.”

“What?” She stood, setting down her wine on the table and climbing onto him. She straddled his waist and he put his hands on her hips, looking up at her through a frame of red hair. “You already know too much about me.”

“As if you don’t know me.”

“I know your name is Bucky, now. They put you in the ice between missions. I know that’s it’s really hard to keep up a relationship with a guy in a freezer.”

He shook his head, squeezing her hips lightly. “I didn’t mean to forget you.”

“No, they wanted you to. My side, your side...”

She leaned down and kissed him once, softly. He lifted one hand to her face. She sat back on his legs, relaxing, her hands on his forearms. He sighed.

“You know what I did. What I used to do.”

“And what I did-”

“About Tony,” he said, brushing a strand of her hair back behind her ear. “They assigned me a mission they shouldn’t have. I was still in there, somewhere, rattling around in the Winter Soldier’s head. It turned out bad for everyone.”

“Does he know?” She squeezed his arms lightly. Sharp as a tack, like always.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Fury never told you?”

“I suspected it might’ve been you. But taking in the kid-?”

“And you still trust him, after he sent you on a mission blind?”

“Yes,” she said, and Bucky believed her. “It’s not his job to tell me everything.”

“It’s his job to keep you alive.”

“No, that’s my job.” she shrugged. “I trust him. You probably shouldn’t, though.”

He shrugged, too. “Don’t trust anyone these days.”

“Not even me?”

“Especially not you,” he smiled.

“Good.”

She moved to lean against him, curling up in his lap. He wrapped his arms around her, trying to keep his metal arm against her shirt so she didn’t catch its chill. They sat in the silence for a while, listening to the waves cresting against the cliffs.

"You’re not him,” she said, quietly. “It took me a long time to understand that. You’re not what they made you to be. You’re a good man, James.”

He thought about that. Plenty of people had told him similar things.

“I’m not really, no,” he stared out at the black sea, eventually looking down to see her concern. “But you’re the only one who really understands that.”

She sighed, leaning back down against his chest. He rubbed her back. There was nothing to say. They both knew how it felt to be used, how it felt to be torn down and built back up as a weapon. Hydra had done it to him and he had helped the Red Room do it to her. But together, they had discovered what having freedom was like, even if it was only in fleeting moments.

“You’ll figure it out eventually.”

Idly, she played with the dog tags resting next to her cheek. Their silence stretched on, until-

“Why do these say ‘if found, return to Tony Stark’?”

Bucky couldn’t help but laugh.

* * *

It was early morning. Bucky sat out on his balcony, a short towel around his neck and a pair of sweatpants hanging low around his hips. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. There was an empty wine glass on the low table in front of him, dirtied with a kiss of red lipstick on the rim. But he was alone now, left to his thoughts and his journal.

When he’d first come out to sit down, morning had barely lit the sky. There’d been a splash of color washing out the stars, but now the sun had crested over the hills with its oranges and blues. Light danced across the water. But despite this beautiful, calm morning, his mind was still as blank as the page before him.

He had a routine: wake-up, work out, eat, and write. Memories were worth documenting when there was no guarantee that he would remember them later.

But there was nothing to remember today.

There hadn’t been anything yesterday, either. Or the day before that.

Behind him, the bedroom door clicked open.

“JARVIS was worried.” Pepper’s soft, sleepy voice broke the silence of the morning. “Good morning.”

“Morning, ma’am. What’d he do?” He rolled his pen between his fingers, leaning his head back against the chair. It was too early to deal with Tony’s bullshit.

“No, not about Tony. About you.”

The pen stilled between his fingers. “Oh.”

“He said you’d been sitting out here for a while.” Before he could turn to give her his attention, she was beside him, holding two mugs of coffee. “Not moving.” She offered one to him, which he took with a thankful nod. He realized his own had gone cold on the table.

He took a drink. It was black, unsweetened and bitter. His preference.

“Distracted,” he mumbled.

She nodded, lapsing into silence as she folded herself into the seat opposite of him. Her legs were long and bare to the morning, unprotected by the short hem of one of Tony’s t-shirts. With hair unkempt and sleep still blinking in her eyes, she yawned.

“You’ll catch a cold, y’know,” Bucky pointed out, abandoning his journal to take a folded blanket out from underneath the table. He tossed it over her legs.

“Tony give you this?” The blanket was printed with repeated images of Captain America and the Howling Commandos, drawn in bold lines and colored appropriately. Various phrases were emblazoned in speech bubbles - _“Captain America wants you,”_ and _“I can do this all day._ ”

“Peggy gave it to him, actually.” He yawned into the morning, reaching back to rub his neck. The way she stared at the seam of his metal arm and chest didn’t bother him like it should. “Seventeenth birthday, or somethin’. Maybe Christmas. He made her mad. I wouldn’t let him toss it.”

She laughed, wrapping herself up with it. Obnoxious as it was, it didn’t make it any less comfortable. No reason to let a good thing go to waste.

They sat in silence for a while, watching the morning rise.

“That’s it, then?” She shifted in her seat to face him properly, still palming her mug. She nodded towards his open journal. “There’s nothing left?”

The question took him off guard. He glanced down to his journal on the table and used his foot to flip it closed, keeping his secrets safe between the pages.

“Left’a what?”

“Left to remember.”

What a question. A sigh escaped him as he tried to think of an answer. Not having anything left to remember hadn’t been something he’d ever thought about. Brain scrambling didn’t leave a lot of room for hope. Nothing had ever been meant to come back. But anything was possible.

He ran his hand through his hair and leaned back, looking up at the sky. Forty years was creeping up on them fast. Forty years of making a new life while trying to piece together his old one.

“...When Steve and I were bored, we used to sneak into ball games.” The story came out of him before he could think it through. In his peripherals, Pepper relaxed to listen. “He was small enough to get lost in a big group and weasel his way in through the front. I knew a girl, Dolly, who’d get me in through the back.”

“You never got caught?”

“All the time.” He shook his head at the memory, taking a long drink of coffee. “Muscle’s name was Richard. Throwing us out was the highlight of his month, I think. Anyway, we used to sneak in a lot - that’s the point. To ballgames, shows, cinemas - you name it, we had a way to get in for free.”

“And?”

“I’d do the same thing with Tony.”

She seemed more intent all the sudden, like he’d struck a chord in her. Tony rarely talked about his childhood. What she knew she’d either pulled out of files or pieced together from various conversations. He was rarely forthcoming, so she always listened when Bucky decided to be.

"Edwin would’a given me the money if I’d asked, ‘round that time. I mighta even had some of my own or Tony could’ve found it somehow. But I didn’t. I’d just pick him up from school or he’d ditch class and we’d sneak into somewhere. Taught him how not to get caught doing things. Taught him what to do when he got caught. Didn’t know why it felt so familiar for a long time.” He rubbed his cheek absently, pressing against his beard. “He reminds me of Steve, sometimes.”

"Do you miss him?” she wondered, gentle, “Steve?”

“Think I missed him before I remembered him.”

Suddenly uncomfortable, Bucky stood up to make his exit. If his memory really was all back, what was it supposed to feel like? Should he feel complete, or accomplished or happy? He sure didn’t. It just felt like turning another page. Something that he’d done every day of his life, except this time there was nothing written on it.  

“Take me to work?” Pepper reached out to touch his arm as he moved to leave, lightly squeezing his wrist. He paused. “Happy’s got the flu and Tony crawled into bed an hour ago.”

“Sure. I’ll go get dressed.”

“I’m not in a hurry.” She let him go, turning her attention back to the waves below. “Meeting with Agent Coulson today.”

Oh. Where there was a Coulson, there was usually a Romanov.

Maybe it was a good thing he wasn’t forgetting so many pieces of his past, anymore.

* * *

The intensity with which Phil Coulson stared at him was inhuman.

Bucky had been subject to many things in his life. Torture and conditioning, assassination attempts, mind control, and stalkers were routine. Everything he’d experienced he’d done to others. Horror was commonplace. Being desensitized to it was as natural as breathing.

Coulson kept staring.

Bucky’s skin was crawling for the first time in years.

“Agent,” Pepper tried to deflect the stare, feeling his discomfort radiating beside her. Outward expressions remained passive, but she knew him well enough to tell. “Agent Coulson, we could continue this over coffee if you’d like. Stark Industries is interested in contracting with you, provided we meet certain guidelines.”

Natasha, standing beside Coulson like Bucky stood beside Pepper, elbowed him in the side. He snapped out of his trance.

“Of course. We’re, um-” His gaze drifted back and Bucky repressed every urge to punch him in the face. “We’ll be in contact. If you could send my regards to Mr. Stark.”

“I will.”

This wasn’t the first time he’d been subject to Coulson’s scrutiny. Tony’s problems attracted SHIELD agents like flies to honey; they’d seen each other in passing before, in the middle of times of crisis. Very few people, agents or otherwise, knew about Bucky’s real relationship with Tony, much less the truth. Coulson surely hadn’t known anything during the Iron Man incident. Maybe someone had told him during the palladium debacle. However the hand had been dealt, Coulson now watched him like a hawk.

It was annoying. More annoying than the suits he had to wear to Stark Industries, and that was saying something.

“Miss Potts. Mr. Stark.” Natasha tried to dismiss them, her finely manicured nails gripping Coulson’s arm.

Why she was here, Bucky didn’t know. Business meetings weren’t exactly an assassin’s forte.

“I’d actually like to ask Mr. Stark-” Not Tony. Bucky.

Natasha gripped harder. “It’s time to go.”

Oh. She was babysitting. Interesting.

It seemed that he might protest further, but eventually all men learned that it was better not to cross Natasha Romanoff. He relented and away they went, exiting through the elevator. Even as the doors closed, he was looking at him.

Mercifully, the doors did eventually shut.

“ _Jesus._ ” Bucky cursed and pulled at his tie, loosing the knot. Pepper touched his arm, falsely sympathetic.

“I think he likes you.”  

He rolled his eyes hard, shrugging off his jacket. When he didn’t have anything to do during the day he would sometimes play bodyguard for her. It was better than hovering around Tony and getting wrenches thrown at him. Happy usually appreciated the break.

“Spare me.”

“He makes good money,” she teased, leaving him to gather her things. “And you’re a cheap date.”

“Oh, am I?” He unbuttoned his cuffs and shook his head, pulling out the tie that kept his hair back. Professionalism was overrated. “You would know?”

“Who pays for lunch, again?”

“Point.” he allowed, “Not like I haven’t tried, though.”

“Maybe I’ll let you pay for me today.”

He grabbed her purse off the chair and opened it for her. She put a copy of the preliminary contract in it for Tony to look at later - a courtesy, not a necessity, because Pepper always did whatever she wanted - and took the red bag from him.

“Yeah, and maybe I’ll let you drive the bike today.” It was understood that neither of those things would ever happen. Ever.

“Point.”

He pressed the call button and leaned against the wall, draping his jacket over his arm. It hid the shine of the prosthetic beneath. With loose hair, rolled sleeves, and a barely knotted tie, he had returned to his natural state: disheveled vogue. He was all the rage within the gossip circles at Stark Industries - a fact that Pepper brought up again and again. His love life was her newest pet project.

“What about Natasha?” she said as they stepped out of the elevator, out into the parking garage. “According to Tony-”

“Tony doesn’t know how to shut up.”

“I take offense to that, one-armed wonder.” Said topic of conversation was sitting in a convertible immediately outside the elevator, waiting for them and parked illegally in a handicapped spot. He waved, looking down over the top of his sunglasses at them. “Why does it look like you two just did the dirty in my elevator?”

“It’s my elevator, Tony,” Pepper corrected. Bucky opened the passenger car door for her and closed it as she leaned over to be affectionate with the driver.

“Sounds like you’re asking to get grounded, kid.”

He climbed over the back of the car to get in the backseat, one-handing himself over the edge.

“Hey, watch the paint. And it’s not my fault that sex hair is apparently a life choice for you.”

“One week, no internet,” Bucky levied judgement, cradling his head in his palm with his elbow pointed into the car exterior.

“Oh, really?” Tony twisted around in his seat to look at him, game face on. “Guess your gift from the good ol’ Agent is going to have to wait, then.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes. “What?”

He smirked, pulling a tablet out between the front seats and waving it at him. He pulled back when Bucky grabbed for it.

“Nuh-uh.”

“Tony.” Pepper took it from him effortlessly, swiping open the lock screen. “Phil left this?”

“ _Phil?_ Since when is he Phil?”

“Since you accused me of having an affair in an elevator.”

“Oh, c’mon, we can have-”

“ _Holy shit._ ”

Rarely so uncouth, Pepper’s curse shut them up. Tony had Coulson’s tablet in his hands before Bucky could steal it from Pepper, swiping through pages at a dizzying pace.

“Well, would you look at that.” He paused on a photo, shaking his head as he handed the tablet back to Bucky. “Looks like you’re not the only frozen bastard on the planet after all.”

* * *

It started with Phil Coulson leaking top secret information.

It ended with the Winter Soldier breaking into SHIELD headquarters with the worst timing in recorded history.

Maybe if he had come a day sooner, he would have found Steve Rogers. Maybe not. The information he had was vague at worst and outdated at best. He’d come determined to find answers, but instead, all he’d found was one very angry man with greasy black hair and a glow stick of destiny.

“My name is Loki, of Asgard,” Loki pinned him to the floor, knee shoved in the joint of his metal elbow and the scepter pointed into his chest. His lip was split, dripping black blood down onto him, and his eye was slowly blackening. “What sort of Midgardian are you?”

Bucky thrashed violently, but his opponent was inhumanly strong. Cold washed through him more violently than cryostasis ever had.

“Oh. I see.” His voice was as ragged as a sandstorm and as sharp as a blade. It swept away and cut through everything in its path - thought, dignity, and even free will.

This was worse than anything Hydra could’ve ever done, Bucky realized. Because inside this body that was no longer his, trapped within a mind that bent to someone else’s will, he was still awake.

“Time to go, Sergeant Barnes.”


	8. Interrupted

**THE WINTER SOLDIER** **  
** **Unknown Location – Underground**

He kept going.

On and on. Down into the underground belly of New York City, where Agent Barton found friends from dark places. Friends that looked at the Winter Soldier and _knew_ , that weren’t afraid of Asgardians or brainwashed agents. Friends that the Winter Soldier would have worked with, once upon a time.

He was standing outside the makeshift laboratory Doctor Selvig had cordoned himself away in. Weapons were spread across the table in front of him, pieced apart for cleaning. He wore his combat gear, the bottom half of his face covered with a tactical mask. The spear’s blue influence shone sharply against the dark paint around his eyes. No one bothered him. He continued to clean his weapon.

Loki was nowhere to be seen. Agent Barton was plotting plans with men in dark suits. The Winter Soldier had been told to stand guard, so he did, waiting for anything that might happen.

He put his weapon back together in slow, meticulous movements as he listened to the chaos inside his mind.

 _“I cannot locate your exact position, Mr. Stark.”_ It was JARVIS speaking in his ear-piece. His combat gear was still made by Stark, controlled by Stark, tracked by Stark. The change in his mental state didn’t change the tech. _“I imagine disabling the tracker in your prosthetic was entirely unnecessary.”_

The Winter Soldier didn’t respond. In his mind, Bucky was playing a game of malicious compliance. He was still conscious beneath whatever Loki had done to him – he could still think, still feel, still make choices even when compelled to do otherwise. Choosing to follow directions explicitly gave him the allowance to maintain secrets. Unless asked, he’d never speak a word of JARVIS’ guiding voice.

His weapon came together with final _click_ , rustling a set of mercenaries nearby. The Soldier gave them a cold look as he attached the rifle to his back.

When Loki came strolling into the room, people quieted. His skin was pale. Sweat beaded around his hairline. He tapped his spear against his thigh as he approached Agent Barton and his posse, inquiring about plans and schemes, pretending at calm control. The Soldier tracked his every movement.

It was a performance. A good one, Bucky noted, but theatre nonetheless.

He’d have to wait this out.

Erik Selvig rushed out of his laboratory to report his findings to Loki.

 _“Regrettably, wherever you’ve gone doesn’t have enough decency to provide wi-fi.”_ JARVIS continued. _“I’m afraid I won’t be much help to you, Sir.”_

He already knew that. Barton had put them away somewhere safe, untraceable and uncrackable. Until he got above ground, there’d be little to do.

“Come,” Loki was announcing to the group at large. Selvig was smiling, but the expression seemed distant. “We leave now. You, soldier-“

He looked up, Loki’s voice stalling his hand on the barrel of his gun.

“-I’ve a job for you.”

* * *

**TONY STARK  
** **Stuttgart, Germany**

Tony suited up the moment Bucky’s gear re-connected to JARVIS. It pinged his location for all the world to know.

But by the time he reached Germany, he was already too late.

“ _You._ ”

He pushed by Captain America with impressive disregard, stomping through a sea of frightened people to assault an alien. Natasha was yelling at him to stand down over the quinjet loudspeaker, but he didn’t care. He took Loki by the neck as his golden armor faded away, throttling him as he slammed his head back into the concrete steps.

“Where is he?!”

Loki laughed, holding his hands up in weak surrender. He stared sidelong at Tony, even as a bit of blood trickled down from underneath his hair. He was starkly pale against the grey stone.

“Ah. The Armor Man.” Tony slammed his head into the ground again. He choked, grimacing through a laugh regardless.

Iron Man’s face plate snapped back. “Where is he?!”

“Your Agent Barton is currently thieving away with something known as ‘iridium,’ if I’m not mista–”

“No.” Tony’s grip tightened around his neck. Loki’s amusement turned to thinly veiled concern as he grabbed at the whirring joints of Iron Man’s wrist. “Where’s–”

Loki struggled to breathe and then a shot rang out in the courtyard.

A shadow seemed to take the bullet; it loomed over them both, immediate and strong, and Tony realized he hadn’t heard the gun fire – he’d heard the bullet ricochet off vibranium. Captain America knelt over them both in a protective stance, shield held high.

More bullets began to hail down on them.

“Sniper. We need to get him out of here,” Captain Rogers yelled over the repeat fire, sparing no glance over his shoulder. “Mr. Stark-”

“Tony!” he called back. “Mr. Stark’s my father.”

He hauled Loki off the ground, barely loosening his grip. The quinjet moved to land.

“I remember.”

Safely escorted to safety by Tony’s childhood obsession, Loki was soon locked and loaded into the aircraft. Natasha released the piloting to Phil Coulson; Steve tried to talk him down as Tony threw off his helmet and rudely secured the restraints on their prisoner. Loki hissed when the buckles cut into his wrist, but his grin was just as sharp.

“Where’s who, Stark?” he crooned, “I’d not thought to antagonize you. Yet. In fact, I quite thought you-”

“I’ll _-_ ” _kill you_ , but the rest was left unsaid. Instead weapons sprung to the ready on his arm, small missiles aimed with fatal intent.

“Oh, dear.” Loki laughed.

“Tony!” Steve grabbed him by the arm when he made to move closer.

“It seems I’ve struck a nerve.”

“Tony.” Natasha was out of her seat, moving between him and his target. Her tune shifted gears when she looked into his face. “…Where is he?”

“I feel like I’m missing something, here, guys,” Steve tried.

Tony nodded his chin at their prisoner in response. Natasha turned on Loki.

“Do you have him?”

“I have many,” his smile was cruel, playful, “You’ll have to be more specific, Agent Romanov.”

“A soldier.”

“Is the meaning of ‘specific’ lost on you?”

“He has a metal arm.”

Loki’s brows were drawn with something like surprise, one arched high and the other kept low, before they relaxed with his short laughter.

“Ah. _The_ soldier. I’d not known he was so-”

Thunder rocked their aircraft and Loki was abruptly cut short, tense in his seat.

“What?” Steve asked. “Afraid of a little lightning?”

Loki took one long breath. “I’m not overly fond of what follows.”

* * *

**THE WINTER SOLDIER  
** **Unknown Location – Underground**

There was a rescue mission that had to happen. Pressed on them by the distant will of the scepter, influenced by Loki’s need before it was taken from him.

If anyone here knew how to locate and extract a target successfully, it was the Winter Soldier.

In the whisper of the order, there was a hint that there were deeper secrets that Loki wished to know. Things to be stolen from those who had stolen him. He wanted to rile his enemy, to sink beneath their skins and tear them apart from inside.

In that, Agent Barton and the Winter Soldier prepared to return to their former allies to save their former enemy. There was little hope that it would somehow work out in their favor.

* * *

**TONY STARK  
** **SHIELD Helicarrier**

Tony and Pepper were in a SHIELD lab, hovering thousands of feet over the Atlantic. Dr. Banner had excused himself for a moment. Steve Rogers was currently trying to understand why Natasha wouldn’t let Director Fury within a hundred feet of Tony. Phil Coulson was talking to Thor, God of Thunder, out in the control room. Tony could see them through the glass walls, rattling around down below.

“It doesn’t make any sense.” Pepper leaned over the table, watching the security footage that had survived the destruction of SHIELD HQ. It played over and over, repeated on the sleek surface between them. “That’s not how he works.”

A blurry form of Bucky Barnes was on the ground, fighting with a blurrier form of green and black. He got a few good punches in before the psychopath managed to roll him over and stick a spear into his chest.

“That’s not how any of this works.” Tony leaned back in his chair, looking back to her and twirling a pen between his fingers. He hadn’t been this antsy in years. “Mind-control scepters? Hydra’s already a hard pill to swallow, Pep’.”

“I know.” She shifted back and waved the footage away. “His arm?”

“He must’ve busted the trackers.” He shook his head. “And his gear will only tell me so much, _if_ he’s wearing it and _if_ he’s not in hiding, probably surrounded by all sorts of jammers. The only thing he can’t touch is the kill switch in his elbow and that thing’s so useless and ancient- ”

“What does it do?”

“Shuts down the arm. Possibly his brain. Maybe. Sort of. Last time I really looked at it I was twelve, I don’t know - figured it was Hydra insurance in case anything went wrong. Never wanted to risk taking it out.”

“Then how do we do this, Tony?”

He sighed, kicking his feet up on the table. Fluorescent lights buzzed above them, dim through his sunglass lenses. They hid how bloodshot his eyes were.

“…I don’t know.”

That was the horrible truth.

“There’s the book.” She sounded like she hated the idea as much as he did. He took off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes.

“Crap chance.”

“Might be our only chance.”

“Mm.”

“What book?” Doctor Banner was back in the lab, rubbing his hands together with sanitize. Tony glanced over his shoulder at him.

“Long story.”

“I bet I can tell longer.”

Tony jumped up to join his Ph.D.-in-crime at the computers. Pepper sighed as she ran a hand through her hair, beginning to tap away on her phone. Her nails clicked across the glass screen.

“All right then, Jolly Green Giant,” Bruce rolled his eyes at him. Tony smirked, good natured. “Let me lay this on you. Hydra-“

“Like, Captain America’s Hydra?”

“The one and only. Hydra scrambles the brain of someone I consider family. Mind washing, Manchurian Candidate, comic book bullshit. He snaps out of it one day and stays out of it, mostly, for about forty years. Now some asshole with a spear-” Tony took the weapon in question off the table and twirled it between his hands. “-plays Yahtzee with his brain, too.”

Banner took the spear from him, flipping it to stick the pointy end at his chest. Tony put his hands up in surrender with a smile.

“Not a toy, Mr. Stark.” He set it back down on its pedestal, surrounded by scanners and holograms. “But… brainwashing? Really?”

Tony pointed an accusatory finger at Loki’s scepter. “ _That’s_ more believable to you?”

“Not at all.” He went over to a nearby monitor, looking at the analysis SHIELD’s computers spit out. Tony moved to the opposite side of it, staring at him through the glass. The readings were mostly gobbledygook. “So, in theory,” Looking down over his glasses at Tony, Bruce seemed like he was willing to humor him. “A person who’s been previously brainwashed would be susceptible to further mind control.”

“Sure. Makes sense. But which one wins?”

“Excuse me?”

Tony lifted himself up onto the worktable, sitting on the clean counter and pulling a silver bag of dried blueberries out from the drawer between his legs. Pepper came over to join them, taking an unused computer station to herself.

“Brainwashing doesn’t just go away,” he tapped his temple, “No magic cure. Familiar with the Russian sleeper cell scare?”

“ _No._ ” His intonation was that yes, he was, but no, that couldn’t be true.

“Stranger things, my good doctor.”

Pepper reached out and touched his arm, pulling him down towards her. He slid off the countertop and stood at her side when she pointed towards the door. Steve Rogers was walking in, tired around those broad shoulders.

“Have you told him?” she whispered.

“Time and place?” he tried.

“Tony.”

“Later,” he promised, kissing her cheek. “How about you…” he tapped on the screen next to them, bringing up red-rimmed windows and processes, “…take a gander at things we’re not supposed to look at, huh? SHIELD secrets?”

“I should yell at you.”

“Yeah, probably. Don’t waste your breath. Tell me if there’s anything worth seeing.”

“Tell him.”

“Tell him what?” Steve asked.

“No, no, that’s not fair,” Tony spun around on his heel, gesturing vaguely towards him, “Superhuman hearing doesn’t get you any points.”

“Points?”

“Long story, maybe I’ll tell it to you sometime.” He clapped his hands together, going over to Doctor Banner. “What’s the story, Cap?”

Steve hip-checked the counter, crossing his arms. “The story is me wondering why Director Fury doesn’t want to talk about why you’re going for his throat.”

“Who isn’t?”

"Tony.”

“Tony, Tony, Tony. People love my name today.”

Pepper clearly rolled her eyes at him. Maybe that was why Steve was smirking.

“Hey, eyes off the prize, Cap. I’m hers.” Because if he said anything else dumb, like ‘she’s mine,’ it’d be a repeat of the twelve percent conversation. “Anyway, Fury got a friend of mine in a tight space and isn’t doing shit to help, that’s why. You’d be pissed too.”

“I guess.” Steve nodded, pointedly looking away from Pepper. Tony was sure he heard her laugh. “So who is it?”

Tony shrugged, leaning back against the table. “My Dad.”

It was time for Steve’s brow to furrow predictably, confusion poorly veiled. He had a feeling Steve wore that look a lot since waking up from the ice.

"Howard?”

“Well, funny story actually…”

The lab doors slid open.

“Funny stories? We have time for funny stories, now?”

Tony rolled his eyes at Fury’s grand entrance. Natasha followed in his wake.

“Sure, since you seem to be doing fuck-all about Rock of Ages in there. What _do_ you do in your spare time, anyway? Plot political domination? Play Yahtzee?”

“I could ask the same question, Mr. Stark.”

“He’s been doing exactly what you asked, Director,” Pepper interrupted, glancing at him over Tony’s shoulder. “Which is more than he should be doing, considering.”

“Considering what, Miss Potts?”

“Considering the fact that you didn’t tell us about him.” She looked pointedly to Steve. He stood up a little straighter, like a soldier encountering an officer, and turned around to look at Fury.

“Miss Potts-”

“Listen, strawberry, he’s saying your name the way he says mine.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Yes, dear.”

“Ma’am, all due respect, but I didn’t want anyone to know when I came out of the ice,” Steve offered, ignoring Tony’s sidebar comments.

“I know that, Captain, but you’d agree if-” She started, then Tony added, “Remember that thing about ‘funny story’?”

The door slid open again and in came Thor and Phil Coulson, joining this ring of conversation around the scepter.

“Him,” Tony said, seizing the opportunity and pointing at Phil, “Agent. He got it. He understood. Thanks for the tablet, by the way.”

“Understood what, Mr. Stark?” Phil said, something like a warning in his tone.

“Those that get frozen together, stay together.”

“Frozen together?”

“There’s a whole wide world of conspiracy you don’t know about, Steve. Thank Fury for not filling you in.”

“Mr. Stark, I swear to God-”

“Well, he is standing right there. Swear away.”

Thor laughed, crossing his arms. “A petty squabble, I take?”

“Not as petty as you think,” Natasha commented, leaning towards him.

“Family squabbles,” Tony amended, thoughtful. “Sure you’re familiar with that, what with green and crazy back there in a pretty glass box. Not you, Banner, no offense-”

He raised his hand in dismissal. “None taken.”

“Can we get back to the funny story?” Steve attempted.

“Sure. Sit around, grab a bucket of popcorn.”

But by the time _once upon a time_ left his mouth, an explosion rocked the helicarrier and nearly sent them all to Kingdom Come. Natasha and Banner went tumbling through a hole that ripped opened in the floor, separating Tony, Pepper, and Steve from the rest of the group. The world spun as he crouched over Pepper, shielding her from the impact, while Steve braced against them both. Tinnitus rung loudly in his ears as he looked up over her head, sharing a bewildered look with a super soldier.

"Honey,” she palmed his arc reactor, sandwiched between two large bodies, “I can’t say I’ve never thought about it, but-”

“Yep, yep, suit time- time for a suit.” He pushed back clumsily, catching on an overturned table next to them. Smoke filled his lungs and, blearily, he realized Steve was pulling him to his feet. The air tasted like iron.

“Your suit,” he was saying, but he was already ignoring him, bent back over Pepper. All he could focus on was the blood on her knees, tiny bits of metal ground deep into the scrapes.

“Still in one piece?”

“I’ll be fine!” She pushed him away, yanking off her heels as she managed to get on her feet.  “Tony, _go_!”

He went. The hallway was filling with smoke, already flooded with armed agents that spilled out of adjacent rooms. Men and women in combat gear started facilitating an evacuation, waving them by and directing agents in suits down staircases and hallways. Another armed group rushed down the hall in front of them, rifles raised as they started to clear the passage.

Floors below them, something roared.

“Shit–”

The only warning he got was his phone vibrating in his pocket, mimicking morse code with three series punctuated alerts.

 _JARVIS,_ he knew, and then the gunfire started.

“ _Shit._ ”

Tony twisted around Steve’s back, stopping him short and pulling the shield off his shoulders just in time to take lead and save them from the barrage of gunfire. The evacuation team didn’t stand a chance. In their rush to snap into rank, they only succeeded in a loose formation, folding over one another as they took fire. Those in luckier positions found cover, braver ones still stopped evacuating to play backup.

Underneath the shield, beyond a moaning pile of bodies and Kevlar, Tony could see boots. Dull, heavy soles, stretched with leather over steel toes. A knife stitched into the lining. It had taken hours to get the stitching just right, Tony remembered. Dummy had kept snapping the thread.

“It’s me!”

Rattling fire vibrated all the way up his arm, a significant amount of shock absorbed by the shield. Steve shouldered him and stole it back when there was a pause in artillery, bodily shielding him.

“For fuck’s sake.” In the half-second’s breath of a reload, a clip clacking against linoleum as their gunner secured a new one, Tony threw himself around Steve’s outstretched arm.

“ _Stark!_ ”

“It’s me!”

The Winter Soldier stared. Around them, agents held their breath, Captain America stifled a curse, and Tony raised his hand up like a someone trying to calm down a dog. Blood pooled at the Soldier’s feet, creeping red down the hallway as the helicarrier trembled with malfunction.

"It’s me.” Desperately, Tony took a step forward. Over his tactical mask, the Soldier’s blackened eyes narrowed.

" _Stark._ ”

“C’mon.” Hands up in surrender, palms displayed, he took another brave step forward. The Soldier’s still held a bullet cartridge beneath his rifle, halfway inserted, hovering as he watched. “C’mon, man, it’s me. Snap out of it.”

With a deafening _click,_ the clip locked into place.

“Shit.”

Before he could take cover, Steve’s shield flew and knocked the rifle astray. It ricocheted off the muzzle and bounced off a wall, defying the known laws of physics to return to him.

“Don’t–!”

Steve charged. The Soldier met him with ease, suddenly on defense as Captain America bull-rushed him, shield-to-chest as he rammed him hard into a windowed wall. His rifle clattered noisily to the ground.

“The suit!”

The Soldier swept his legs out from under him, flipping them both to the floor, and grabbed his neck to push him down and get a good punch in. Blood speckled the floor, clinging to the corners of his mouth. The shield went skidding out of his hands as he took another round to the jaw.

“No time.” Instead of rushing off to arm himself, Tony reached inside his blazer and withdrew a tattered old notebook. “Last chance, old man.”

The Soldier looked up. The fight stalled. Something happened somewhere beneath the blue void of his gaze as Tony turned the first page.

“Желание.” _Longing._

Steve lost his grip when the Soldier jolted into action, scrambling aside for the gun he’d lost. Tony rolled deftly out of the way, grabbing the shield and startling an agent hiding behind cover when he threw himself into a recessed entryway.

“Ржaвый.” _Rusted._

Captain America took the Soldier out at the knees before he could line up a shot, tackling him to the ground. They started rolling again – Steve had to use both arms to keep the metal one down.

“What are you doing?!”

“Hold him down! Семнадцать. Рассвет.”

_Seventeen. Daybreak._

Jarringly, a pistol’s shot rang out, sickeningly silent when it failed to hit a wall. Tony looked out with time enough to see blood spread across Steve’s shoulder like oil on water, tainting the blue fabric purple. Gritting his teeth to the pain, he shouldered the Soldier, hoisting him off balance and pinning him back to the ground.

“Shield!” Tony called out. Steve caught it without even looking, promptly inflicting as much blunt force trauma as he could.

“Печь.” _Furnace._ “Shit. Fuck.”

 _Turn the page_ , he told his shaking hands. _Turn the goddamn page_. Darting into a connected hallway further out of range, he tried to steady his breathing. Triggering Bucky was something he said he’d never do. Something he’d never wanted to do. It could turn back the clock fifty years, for all they knew. They might not ever get him back.

“What are you doing, Stark!?”

“Shut it and keep him down.”

He blinked at the Russian scrawled on the page. Another bullet echoed and he pressed harder against the wall, the window across from him shattering into a thousand little pieces.

“Девять. Добросердечный.” _Nine. Benign._

Years ago, after he’d first been given the notebook, he’d memorized all the words. With little allowance for error, he was reading them now, but he was also acutely aware that there were other secrets tucked between these pages – last resorts that would probably end up with both of them dead.

“Возвращение на родину.” _Homecoming._

Steve made a terrible noise. Combat boots hit the ground again. All that was left was to take a deep breath and try to get a few more words out.

“Один.” _One._

He stepped away from cover, standing out in the open hallway. Captain America was on the ground, surrounded by the dead. The Winter Soldier was staring down a pistol pointed at the arc reactor.

“Г рузовой вагон.” _Freight car._

The world stood still.

The sound of Steve’s labored breathing was all that punctuated the silence, haggard and raw as he tried to crawl back to his feet. Tony stared down the bullet meant for him, lungs entirely empty as the Soldier, statuesque, held his ground. But there was a twitch in his face, a muscle in his jaw jumping underneath his mask. Even from here, Tony could see the blue in his eyes flickering. Glitching.

“Can you hear me?”

It was barely a whisper, but the Soldier gave the sharpest, strained nod. A jerking movement that jostled his steady aim.

“ _Soldat,_ lower your weapon.” Tony tried.

Nothing happened. Steve stared up at his opponent before shooting his gaze to Tony, reserved and wide-eyed as he forced himself up off the ground. Blood spackled the floor around him.

“What…?”

The Soldier violently twitched, but his movements were stuck like a jammed machine. Tony held up his hand.

"Shut it, Cap.”

The instructions scrawled in the notebook recommended using “the chair” before attempting to trigger the Soldier. Tony knew that was code for a couple thousand volts to scramble his brain, but with no taser or trigger-happy archer around, options were limited. Their chances for success were already at a minimum considering the Loki variable - whatever change they could affect could break any minute. He scrambled to find another key phrase between the weathered pages.

“Доброе утро, солдат.” _Good morning, soldier._

According to the book, he was supposed to have a pre-programmed response to that.

Silence followed. Tony stared, fingers hovering over the words. His heart was about to beat straight out his chest. Beneath the arc reactor, anxiety itched in his ribcage.

With all world’s tension bleeding out over him, the Soldier shifted his weapon and safely lowered it to his side as the blue swirled out of the dark voids of his eyes.

“Я готов отвечать.” _Ready to comply._

Tony nearly collapsed with relief.


	9. Reunited

The world was bleary and loud when he woke up. A door opened. Footsteps seemed as loud as thunderclaps.

“Absolutely not-”

“Director Fury, this is uncalled for.”

“Excuse me, Miss Potts, but I frankly don’t give a damn.”

“Director-”

Four people. Five?

“Agent Romanov, I am not in the mood.”

“I don’t give a damn if you’re in the mood, Fury. You nearly got us all killed.”

“I’m not the one harboring a sleeper cell, Mr. Stark.”

“Funny how there was never a problem until you took the helm, huh?”

“Now Tony.”

“Oh, c’mon, don’t ‘now, Tony’ me, Pep’. Peggy never woulda let this happen.”

Fabric shifted somewhere next to him. There was a hand on his forehead. Small and soft. Cool. His breath was too warm, trapped underneath his mask.

"You know Peggy?” It was a familiar, deep voice, farther away from the rest.

“Oh, do I know Peggy, Cap’.”

He blinked once, twice, and saw the fuzzy silhouette of Pepper Potts above him. The fluorescent lights were quick to seed a headache behind his eyes and she smoothed back his hair. Gently, she squeezed his hand - he thought it was her, anyway. It took him a while to realize there was something around his wrist.

“Miss Potts, I’d advise-”

“I don’t remember asking for your advice, Director Fury.”

He blinked again and rolled his head ever so slightly, groaning underneath his breath. The room quieted and he felt a larger hand press on his knee.

“You up, old man?”

He sighed and tried to lift his head, but found a restraint strapped across his forehead. Pepper obliged his groaning realization and popped it free.

“ _Miss Potts_ -”

“Ain’t gonna shoot‘nyone, promise. Scout’s honor... _Christ_ …”

His words were muffled behind his mask, weary and soft. Blinking around the room, five faces blinking back, he realized he’d been restrained. It didn’t come as a surprise, honestly, but at least that it just in some armory instead of the chair in the workshop.

Across from him, beyond Pepper and Tony standing at his bedside like concerned parents, he spied Agent Barton, equally restrained on a hospital cot. Controlled by someone, like he was… like he’d been.

The only other thing he knew was that it had been a long, long time since he’d felt like this. Disassociation dug deep. Regaining control of his own thoughts was a slow, dizzying process.

“Before you start talking, I’ve got two things to say,” Tony announced, clapping him lightly on the leg. The room suddenly dimmed and he realized that an examination light had been swung away. “One: I’d never thought I’d have to do that and it was the single most terrifying moment of my life this week. I’m sorry. You earned a point or two.” Bucky tried to laugh, but the sound was pained. Pepper squeezed his shoulder, comforting. “And two: I’m sorry your boyfriend had to see you this way.”

_Boyfriend?_

That didn’t make sense, he thought. Maybe it didn’t matter. Tony didn’t always make sense under stress.

Pepper reached over him, loosening restraints. She had a cut on her cheek.

What happened?” _Was it me?_

“Nothing, Bucky.” _No._

“Miss Potts, don’t make me warn you again-”

“What?” The familiar voice that Bucky couldn’t place interrupted Director Fury’s protests. Pepper’s hands stilled on a buckle. “What did you call him?”

Tony laughed. The sound was strange, disingenuous.

“Funny story, remember?”

“We don’t have time for stories.” Fury snapped. “Loki is gone, and he-”

 _Loki._ The name hit him like lightning, cracking bright through the haze of his thoughts. Restraints gave way as he shot upright, the plastic railings alongside his cot creaking and bending in his fist. Loki was still out there with the Tesseract. He had plans – monstrous, world-altering plans that were still in motion. Bigger than a war or a man with a red skull. Bigger than they knew—

Tony grabbed his good shoulder and Pepper, startled, put her hand on his chest, anchoring him down. Natasha watched Fury as he reached inside his jacket, stepping back.

“Hey, take it easy, buddy. Breathe.” Wide-eyed, Tony stared down at him, clearly on edge. “It’s all right, you’re here with us. No Loki. No oatmeal brain. Calm down.” Slowly, carefully, Bucky leaned back.

“Loki,” he tried.

“I know. He’s not here, but we’re taking care of it. Relax. Get some air.”

He unclipped his tactical mask. It hinged off his face, swinging freely into his hair.

“... _Bucky?_ ”             

Standing across the room, seated in a chair behind Fury, was a tall, blond man with a breathless expression on his face. It was that sort of slack-jawed confusion that dames got when their soldiers came back from war after someone had told them they’d died. Bucky had seen it once or twice before he’d gone into the freezer. It was a hard thing to forget. But seeing it directed at him was more unsettling than he’d expected. He supposed he probably had the same dumb look on his face, too.

_Steve._

Intense and detached all at once, staring back, saying nothing, Bucky could only try to navigate his clouded thoughts. Anguish, anxiety, desperate relief and wholeness rattled around in his head. Steve Rogers kept staring. Captain America slowly rose to his feet, painted with disbelief.

“One and only,” Tony confirmed quietly, when Bucky didn’t respond. “Got stuck in some ice of his own. Evil step-mother over there knows all about it.”

Fury looked like he was choking on something. Natasha shook her head and lowered herself onto the corner of Barton’s bed.

“I… you…” Steve tried.

“Hydra,” was the only thing Bucky could think to say.

“Hydra.” One solemn word hiding a million more regrets. “Bucky, I-”

“What happened?” Slowly, he started pulling off his own gear, shirking Tony’s help. Mask, bulletproof vest, knives and holsters came off in mechanical movements.

“Alien bastard has a mind control stick,” Tony explained, effortlessly ignoring everyone’s emotional state. “But I think the conditioning scrambled you up so bad that he couldn’t keep hold. You’re so fucked up, you’re sane. Something like that. I-”

“Wait. Hydra.” Steve stopped at the foot of his bed. Fury was radiating stress behind him. “After you… you fell?”

“Yeah. They found me.” Bucky tried to be dismissive, calm and collected, but echoes of pain crept up. He started to wipe at the black smudged across his face. “Got in my head.”

“Sleeper cell.” Natasha added pointedly, earning Steve’s attention. “Trigger phrases.”

"Phrases that have been wiped clean off every data server known to man, I might add,” Tony said, rounding his way to the other side of the bed and tapping Bucky’s metal shoulder. “Let me see the damage you did.”

Silently, Bucky complied, laying out his arm for Tony to open. Steve watched with poorly hidden disbelief.

“Your arm?”

“Hydra.” He shrugged.

“This whole time?”

“Alive. More or less. Lots of sleeping.” Bucky cringed as Tony slid aside rows of plating, taking a look inside his arm. He whistled low, cautiously prodding some of the broken wires and exposed copper hidden within.

“You look the same.”

"Thank you for that astute observation, Captain Obvious,” Tony interjected dryly. He sighed. “But I’ve got my work cut out for me and no time. C’mon-” he closed the arm up again, standing, “We got about twenty minutes before we get close to the city and no time for a California field trip. You’ve got a date in the lab with a soldering iron, Dad. Up, up, old man, you heard me.”

Regretfully, with slow, strained movements, Bucky managed to swing his legs off the side of the cot. Still dizzy, Pepper was kind enough to help him to his feet.

“Tony Stark, if you think you can-”

“Nick,” Steve interrupted, turning on heel as Bucky walked past with an arm slung over Pepper’s capable shoulders. “I don’t know what’s going on. Honest. But if the choice is keeping him here or fixing him, I don’t think I have to tell you whose side I’m on.”

There was a tense moment where the Stark trio lingered at the door, watching Captain America and Director Fury go toe-to-toe. Natasha crossed one leg over the other as she sat with Agent Barton, still blissfully unconscious.

“Rogers, I can’t just let a living weapon walk out of here.”

“It’s Captain.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s Captain Rogers,” Steve said sharply, his rudeness barely veiled. “And that is _Sergeant_ James Buchanan Barnes. _My_ Sergeant, if I remember correctly, and if your name doesn’t have a ‘Major’ in front of it, I don’t give a damn what you have to say about him.”

“The war is over, _Captain._ ”

“Really? Cause as I remember it, it was just a couple of days ago.” And then Captain America, in all his stubborn glory, about-faced straight towards the door. He nodded towards Bucky. “Sarge.”

Bucky shook his head, giving a lazy attempt at a salute as Steve led them out the door. The ice obviously hadn’t changed a thing about him.

"Damn, Cap.” There was a hint of respect in Tony’s whisper as he took lead of the group down the hallway, away from the ticking time bomb that was Director Fury. He clapped him on the shoulder. “I take back every mean thing I ever said about you.”

“Wait, what’d you say?” He almost sounded offended.

“It was all in my head, promise. C’mon.” Tony darted ahead of them, clearing their path to the lab. Security scattered as he directed them to other made-up problems in hallways that didn’t currently occupy the Winter Soldier.

Steve sighed as he fell into step with Bucky and Pepper.

“...Did he call you ‘Dad’ back there, or have I still got ice in my ears?”

Bucky sighed, too, but it sounded more like a laugh.

“Funny story.”

* * *

“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll take that drink,” were Loki’s words of surrender.

The battle for New York ended significantly sooner than anyone might’ve expected. But no one had accounted for Bucky getting unruly after someone threw Tony out a window. Or for Tony to strap a nuke to his pack and rocket through a portal into space, presumably martyring himself. Dying, forever.

Luckily for Loki, Iron Man was alive enough to show up right before Bucky shot him in the face.

“Tony? For fuck’s sake.”

The Avengers flooded into Stark’s penthouse, weapons and fists at the ready. But none was aimed so closely as the gun Bucky had in hand, shoved unkindly into the bottom of Loki’s jaw.

“I love you too, old man,” he said, clapping him on the shoulder. The suit whirred noisily in disrepair. “But the apartment’s wrecked enough without the blood spatter.”

Loki watched them with wide, sharp eyes, hands still held up in surrender. Bucky’s shoulders slumped as he let his gun fall.

“I’ll kill you,” he said, turning on Tony quickly and smacking him upside the head when he stood. “Moron.”

Tony just laughed.

“That’s what you said last time. Hey, ever had shawarma?”


End file.
